xenia for nutrient export?

drkdweller

Member
i was thinkng of a 29 gal xenia fuge on a 55 gal with a 25 gal wetdry and a 10gal macro fuge with chato, or vise versa
what do you think 29 gal xenia fuge or 10 gal xenia fuge
 
K

kistheeze

Guest

Originally posted by Kip4130
kinda like blane's PPE ... except not purple people eaters
pulsing poop eaters

yes - only much less expensive and the color of the actual xenia is the same when you put it in your tank...
 

mary

Member
So I am to understand that putting a zenia into a mature tank could upset the stability of my tank? A friend is going to give me some babies to add to my collection of corals, and was really excited about them. Should I rethink that?
 

flatzboy

Active Member
When you say bump up the flow rate in the fuge do you mean 10x the fuge's capacity or 10x the main tanks capacity. I just got all the cut acrylic pieces for my fuge and I'm getting ready to weld them together. Its capacity will be about 13 gallons with a few inches left from the water to the top. Also how do you trim up the xenia. I had an xenia a while ago in my old 20g. reef and I took it out because it was getting huge and overunning my tank.
 

mary

Member
Hmmm, think I won't put any Zenia in. Thanks. I will attempt to understand all I have read here on the purpose of zenia's and find some more info that can help me figure this out. Still fighting algeas and as long as that isn't solved will stay away from any other problems that might occur. Thank you!
 

saltydave

Member

Originally posted by Kip4130
i dont have pics here at work... but can post some later... i have been running a xenia fuge in my sps growout tank for about 6 months or more and it works perfectly.... i did see the chaeto and the caulerpa in the same fuge die-off... the xenia outcompeted it for nutrients (my only guess)
i am able to keep 0 levels on no3/po4... whereas before, with macros... i could never bottom out my numbers and always had a few algae issues in the tank
but with this success comes risk:
... i am sure everyone has heard of a xenia meltdown
i approach this the same as you would macros.... prune out the old xenia just like you would the old strands of caulerpa
also, since xenia is so good at nutrient removal per its mass... use a low ratio of xenia to tsv (total system volume)... this will keep the effects of a meltdown to a minimum.... and lastly.. the overflow from my xenia fuge is within inches of my euro-reef.... so decaying xenia should get sucked into the skimmer (the slower flow out of the fuge is also helpful in meltdown control)
to run a xenia fuge from an existing macro fuge... bump your fuge turnover from about 7 up to 10x... and shoot for around 6wpg of photosynthetic light
of course, all of your chemistry has to be stable and in-line (if you look at your xenia fuge and it aint happy/pulsing... you know you got chemistry problems)
final note (i promise "final" this time :) ) ... i would not run a xenia fuge on a mature tank if you do not have experience with xenia
good luck

xenia melt what causes it remedy?:help:
 

saltfun

Member
I'll thime in here. havent posted here in a long time. Heres my story with xenia. i started with one stalk in my display had bad cyno and hair alge problem. The xenia spread really fast as i had high nitr. After the xenia spread the alge problem soon died out and all lvl's balanced out. xenia was starting to take over all my sps's frags space so i moved it all to my fuge and took out all macros. I have 2 65watt pc lights over my 30gl fuge. The xenia took over the hole bottem of the fuge. Both nitrates and nitriets were at 0 all alge was gone but po4 started to go up. A few months down the road the xenia stopped expanding then one day all the xenia had a huge die off(smelled really bad). I was able to save 1 stalk out of about 35 stalks. Back now i have about 10 stalks agine but have 2 chambers seperating xenia and cheeta macro. All lvls are 0 now. From what i have experanced you really want to keep some xenia and still some type of macro. Keeping them both trimed time to time as kip said to save from starving all the xenia off to death. I run my fuge 14-16 hours a day.(sorry if this does not make sense and rambles on just got home form the bars and was bored).
 

saltydave

Member
makes sense. that must b why i ;ose some of my xenia crop occasionly. cuts it self back and comesback and spreads and then and does it again. is there only a certain amt xenia u can have in a zero leval environment.v what is po4? what is macro? types of macro?:notsure:
 

drkdweller

Member
macro= macro algae like calurpa, chato, ect...
Po4 = pospates( i think)
I did mine last night and left- kida scared to go back and fine a crash.
I hate messsing with my tank, the worst thing is to have a crash that could have been prevented.
I did a 10 gal xenia fuge on a 55 that has a 25 gal wet/dry sump
i put about 10 fresh xenia frags in. the didnt close up, shrink, or
stop pulsing for the first hour they were in there. so i hope they'll be alive when i get home as well as the main tank.
I was going to run a 29 gal macro fuge into the same system
would this be a bad idea, would one starve the other?
 

mary

Member
After reading everyones comments on zenia, I am going to put some in my tank, starting with some small frags from my friend. Maybe as they grow slowly things will change gradually, therefor no major problems. Love to experiment anyway.
 

saltydave

Member
i seethanks. what wood be the best kind of macro:D wood b best for my purple tang as a supplement, and as a exporter?
 
K

kistheeze

Guest

Originally posted by Bang Guy
Chaetomorpha (Spaghetti Macro Algae)

will a tang eat cheato?:notsure:
 

reefnut

Active Member
xenia for nutrient export
Tried it, don't like it... going back to algae. Not sure if it was a lack of light? flow? room? number of Xenias? or what but in my
20g sump/ refug for the 55g tank it seems algae works better. I only ran it for 5-weeks or so (which could be part of it). I'm going to go back to algae and put the Xenia in the display.
 

saltydave

Member

Originally posted by Bang Guy
Chaetomorpha (Spaghetti Macro Algae)

thanks bang. will a coral beauty eat this as a green supliment as well? i saw that link w/ ur logoon, saw the plumbing and filteration but cood not c pics. of lagoon. cood u attach lagoon pics. kike filteration pics. u give good advice, 5 ft. vho's, i'm in.
can't wait to c the laagooooooooon.:jumping: :jumping: :jumping: :D
 
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