Housing for a Pumping Xenia, silver branch?

uahawkfish

uahawkfish

New Member
I am very interested in the pumping xenia, silver branch coral, I could watch it all day.
Can anyone tell me their experience with this coral and recommendations.
My setup is FOWLR, but I was wondering if I could house ONLY a pumping xenia in a separate small nano, with the appropriate lighting obviously? Any comments on this idea?
 
leigh

leigh

Active Member
I recently set up (about 2 weeks ago) a lil nano tank in a 3 gallon eclipse. I retrofitted in a 13 watt powercompact bulb so it's got plenty of lighting for low/moderate light corals... I bet that kind of setup would work well as a lil nano xenia tank! If you want to be able to keep a fish with it though i'd go a bit bigger--5-6 gallons--then you'd also be able to put more light over it. hope that helps!...(you may try asking this in nano tanks too)...oh, and you do need to be careful with coral selection--i'm not sure if xenia does chemical warfare or not like other leathers, but it is difficult to maintain water conditions for different leather corals in a nano tank as they will perpetually fight chemically with each other!
 
uahawkfish

uahawkfish

New Member
What do you mean when you say "retrofitted". I am hoping there is a pc bulb out there I can simply put in, and maybe have to screw some holes in top for heat, something simple, or does it require making/modifying the hood on that eclipse 3, and other changes as well?
 
leigh

leigh

Active Member
it was fairly simple--i think it was 3 screws to remove the old light from the hood--a little measuring to make sure everything would align right when reassembled--3 holes to drill in the eclipse hood for screws to attach the new ballast. glued the reflector to the ballast. popped in the bulb and good to go. so all up--tools required: ruler, phillips head screwdriver, drill, glue . it does run hot now. i'd like to put a fan in it at some point, right now i leave the lid over the filter part open which keeps the tank around 82 degrees. with the lid closed it gets up to 84+ . if you post your e-mail address i can send you the link to the light I bought (it's like $25) ...and if it'd help i can take pictures of mine for you...
 
leigh

leigh

Active Member
you got mail :)
and i'll get some pics for you. it's not too exciting looking right now as all it has in it are caulerpa, one snail, one mushroom, and a bit of cyano :rolleyes: but really, it's not hard to do--i'm one of those theoretical engineering types who's more likely to set the building on fire than correctly wire something--but it's been up and running now for nearly 2 weeks and no fires yet :D
 
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