Dead Xenia???

hunterdaddy

hunterdaddy

Member
I have had this nice large xenia rock for about 2 weeks. It was doing very well up untill this morning. When my girlfriend turned on the lights this morning it was all shriveled up. Some stalks had turned from brown to purple/white and about 95% of the stalks "heads" were missing or very very shriveled. Perfect to pretty much dead in 12 hours???
All parameters are fine. My shrooms are fine and my trumpets are doing ok. I have not nor do I have a way to test for alk. cal is about 350-400. I have them under PC lighting about 4 watts per gal actinic and 50/50 i beleive.
In tank are:
LM blenny
Gold banded maroon clown
6 line wrasse
sally lightfoot
emerald crab
25 blue leg hermits
20 cerith snails
11 turbo snails
2 different types of shrooms
ricordia
Any ideas? Someone posted a while back about xenia poisoning a tank when it dies. Well I beleive mine is dead and everything in the tank is fine.
 
nerdy

nerdy

Member
Where are they located in your tank (current and lighting wise)
Don't take it out because they have been known to "rebuild".
I have had luck with adding Iodine a little more regularily.
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
You won't like this answer probably, but whenever my Xenia looked irritated my ALK is out of balance with my Ca. I don't even hardly test for either anymore because the Xenia is so accurate.
 
hunterdaddy

hunterdaddy

Member
Got my alk tested today
it was 4 calcium between 350-400
all other tank parameters are PERFECT.
I did see my Lm blenny munching n the rock and spitting out xenia pieces. Also my emerald crab is hanging out on the rock happily munching away. I don't know if either one is going after xenia stalks exclusively but it looks like its a possibility.
 
hunterdaddy

hunterdaddy

Member
don't know the LFS guy is a friend and he knows his stuff so I would assume it was 4 whatever it is supposed to be
he said it needs to be between 4 and 6 don't know the increments
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
hmmm interesting.
If you measure Meq/L then it should be about 2.5 - 3.5 to balance with your Ca level.
If you measure in DkH then it should be 7 - 10 to match with your Ca. So... it's either slightly high or really low depending on which unit they used.
 
flamingkingofhe

flamingkingofhe

Active Member
i agree could be the alk whenever i have had xenia it has always let me know when something is wrong with the alk and cal. another thing is i had a clown once that bonded with my xenia like a anemone/clown relationship that resulted in the xenia ending up dead
as far as it fouling the water i have had two different xenia's die in my tank and they have never fouled the water but i suppose if you had it in like a 10g than it might happen
 
michaeltx

michaeltx

Moderator
and alot of times if it crashes and appears to die off just to restart growing with a vengence.
on another note my shrivel up sometimes and look like what you are describing just to reopen up later on that day or later.
Mike
 
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