Obervation of xenia with new lights

pyro383

Member
I little history is in order regarding my experience with xenia.
Puchased frags from a local reefer. He housed them in a 40g breeder with 220w of pc set 5" from the top (suspended). These frags stayed small and pulsed like crazy. 3 different times I bought them from him. Our ph/alk matched as did salinity. When I brought them home and slowly aclimated them they pulsed just as they did in his tank. I have a 45g high with then 144pc with the light hood 1.5" from top of water, after a 2 days they stopped pulsing and started to stretch. Soon after they went from about 1.5" to 5" long and very little pulsing. I then started dosing iodine every 4 days to no avail. Oh well I thought. Last week I was at my lfs and he had xenia in 40g breeders with 40w no and they were pulsing like crazy. 2 days later they stopped and started stretching.
Foward to 3 days ago. I finally finished up my new lighting, 192w pc mounted in canopy set at 8". The xenia slowly pulsed slightly faster and shrank just a bit. Cool I thought, yesterday I fired up the mh part which is 175w 10k mounted in canopy set at 6 1/4", within a hour they started pulsing like crazy and shrank substantially.
So I do believe that light intensity is a important factor for the xenia to pulse.
Any thoughts?
 
W

wildmike

Guest
I think your right. A friend and I bought some from the LFS this weekend and I have 440 watts of VHO over my 55 and he has 2 NO over his 29 gal. Mine pulse like crazy and his don't. They came from a local reefer so they are from the same parent coral. Must my .02
Mike
 

mlm

Active Member
This sounds right on the money. I bought a colony of white pom pom xenia out of a tank with 250 watt mh halide that was pulsing extremely fast. I put it in my tank with VHO/pc lighting and it turned pink, elongated and still pulses but not as fast. I will be moving it into my new tank with 2 400 watt MHs so hopfully it will go back to its original color and size and start pulsing like mad again.
 
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