Growing Xenia

[BSAJim]

Anthony,

Great article this month, and sorry I missed you while
you were here in California.

The coral farm planning and implementation goes well.
I am finally settling on crop selection.

All the LFS are dying for a reliable supply of different
xenia, so I am investigating adding it as one of the
corals I supply locally.

Having read several books (including your and Borneman's)
it looks like xenia generally makes poor use of light, does
not feed on planktons, and relies heavily on dissoled organic
compounds (DOCs) for nutrition.

This works well in a reef aquarium, where there are many
sources of DOCs. However, following your advice and keeping
only one type of coral per tank, how does one "feed" the
xenia? Add fish to the tank? Add fish food to the tank and
allow it to develop into DOCs?

Any and all suggestions are heartily welcome!

Thanks,

Jim

[Anthony Calfo]

Deep mature sand beds and/or refugiums (for micronutrients) and weekly water changes or better (minerals) will grow Xenia quickly in culture systems.

You can get to the point where you can double your colonies (large salable sizes... not just puny frags) every 14-20 days like clockwork. The wholesale production of Xenia elongata alone brought in a couple tens of $K yearly for me. Its big money. They actually paid for the fixed expenses of my greenhouse monthly and then some! Very profitable and always in demand by wholesalers and retailers who supply to the biggest segment of our market/hobby: beginners. Its just the advanced aquarists online that whine and moan about it being a nuisance ;)

Xenia away my friend :)

Anthony

[BSAJim]

Originally posted by Anthony Calfo
Deep mature sand beds and/or refugiums (for micronutrients) and weekly water changes or better (minerals) will grow Xenia quickly in culture systems.


Getting to a deep mature sand bed can take significant time.

I find the recommendation for a refugium a bit confusing. I
associate refugiums with generating plankton (which the xenia
are poor at utilizing) and reducing DOCs (where I want to
increase them. Can you share a few more words on this?

What about adding the nutrients that I use to culture my
phytoplankton? Wouldn't that add DOCs that the xenia could
effectively use, or have I started down the slippery slope of
creating a witch's brew environment?

Thanks,

Jim