What happened to my xenia!

[lil.guppy]

So I have 3 xenias in my tank. The mother as shown here and two other colonies off of this one. They all look like this except for the baby sprouts are just fine.
I woke up this morning and found all the tenticles on the xenias shrivled up and drooping and even slightly pale. They have not changed all day. The stalk coloration is fine though. They have never done this before.
Reminder its not just this one but 2 other colonies in the tank. Everything else in my tank is doing just fine even my fish

 

[lil.guppy]

Now the buds are off and floating around on the sand!
Anyone know what happened?

 

[coastie5685]

hmmm... well red sea xenia will be the first to tell you that your water params are off.. i added 4lbs of live rock iwthout curing it to the tank and xenia died within a few hours. if the buds are falling off and no longer pulsing its eventually going to die. test your water params and be sure there good. they are sensitive to any kind of ammonia and nitrite...

 

[coastie5685]

and then again... red sea xenia is a hit or miss coral... they will do awesome and then could crash on you in an instant ... wierd..

 

[jerryatrick]

Originally Posted by Coastie5685
http:///forum/post/2970601
and then again... red sea xenia is a hit or miss coral... they will do awesome and then could crash on you in an instant ... wierd..
+1
I have read that when Xenia goes bad that you should consider that a warning sign that your parameters are off. I am not sure if I believe this anymore. For months I couldn't control the growth of xenia in my tank. This past month I can't seem to keep it alive. My parameters all check out and everything else in the tank is doing great.
Xenia is not for every tank. Not enough is known about this type of coral. I have read that iodine levels are important for long term success.

 

[nanomantis]

Xenia is extremely sensative to changes in temperature.

 

[shyfish]

Hi,
Xenia loves cooler water. Also light.
This happened to me. How old are your lights? My Xenia went down to a little pool of goo. The babies were the last. They didn't need as much light to keep the colony alive.
I thought my xenia was gone, I changed my bulbs and now they grew out of the little pool of goo. They are huge now.
Change your bulbs out, if the water is fine. It worked for me.

 

[coastie5685]

my xenia died off... just floated off little by little in the wter. where the xenia had its foot there were tiny tiny pieces still attached. now that my tank water params are doing bettter after the crash. i noticed little buds growing back out of the attached pieces. not counting n them though.. dunno how theyll do

 

[beazalbob69]

I had my 1st xenia die rather fast after growing well for awile. Found out they dont like sudden changes to salinity. I didnt have a sump at the time and was doing fresh water topoffs right on top of my xenia. After a couple of times doing this they died.
Almost killed my 2nd colony in my current tank with sump. I was doing topoffs in the sump but the sump outlet into the tank was blowing right across my xenia. They shriveled up like you described and I thought they were dead. I moved the outlet away from them and they slowly grew back. Now they are doing real good and spreading from 1 stalk that almost died to about 15 stalks!

 

[lil.guppy]

Im thinking my change in salinity did it. I change some water and cleaned the tank the night before and my salinity went down 1 point for about 30 minutes before bringing it back up again.
The stalks are still alive, buds are all gone, but there are new ones coming out of the 3 stalks

 

[shyfish]

Originally Posted by Coastie5685
http:///forum/post/2971972
my xenia died off... just floated off little by little in the wter. where the xenia had its foot there were tiny tiny pieces still attached. now that my tank water params are doing bettter after the crash. i noticed little buds growing back out of the attached pieces. not counting n them though.. dunno how theyll do
They will do great! This happened to me, and I'm telling you they will do fine and grow to be beautiful.

 

[nycbob]

no one really know about xenia. there isnt an exact answer. imo, xenia is weird. i hv xenia growing in sg of 1.022 and hv the same one grow in water with sg of 1.028. who knows?