question about xenia growth

[beach]

great threads about xenia prop.frick n frag how were you gettng such rapid growth.i have a 90 and a 55 reef with dsb,lr ,refug.'s,etc, para. are great and suppl. wth iodine daily.lighting on both tanks is 4 vho.my xenia grow but i will die of old age before they become a forest.also will they do better on the bottem of the tank they are midway up the rock.kind of new to the hobby tanks are 4 mos old but really would like to start prop for my own tanks.thanks beach.

[Frick-n-Frags]

Love that dirty water... or however that song goes. I have dirty water(but zero in the PO4 and NO3 categories, which is the inorganic fertilizer department, whole 'nother story). No mechanical filtration. Very old system, decent water changes and light supplementing of Iodine and iron.

What is weird is that I have the pink Red Sea xenia in plague proportions yet when I get the silver-back or standard elongata, they just sulk for 6 months and fade away.

I had a colony hop onto the front glass of one of my tanks. I should have taken the 4 week sequence of pics to show how it creeps, splits, creeps, splits, creeps, anyway there are about 8 or 10 colonies spread most of the way up the side now and it's razorblade time, or it will be 20 colonies after next split.

The Xenias creep with the current and towards the light. They don't care where they grow, but the stronger the light, the more they like it. A strong current bums them out and a powerhead will shred them because they have little substance (like half cooked eggwhites) so ph streams make good Xenia fencing too, they reach out and shred then get small and go away :D

[Frick-n-Frags]

Beach, and I am serious, do you just want 20 or 30 colonies to start your forest? Next frag swap or , Actually where are you? PM me and I would be happy to overload you too. I really do have to destroy a lot of Xenia these days and you are welcome to a bunch. Then you can take them home and use them for swap fodder for more other coral and maybe take some to your LFS and get some free salt too.

[Dwayne]

Xenia = The other nutrient export


Dwayne

[Frick-n-Frags]

Right on :D