Fragged some Xenia -- who ate it?!?

[fsn77]

I cut a frag of pulsing red Xenia a couple of days ago and it was recovering just fine. It was reaching out and pulsing yesterday -- even looked like it was starting its initial attachment to the piece of rubble I rubber banded it to. I look at it this morning and someone ate more than 75% of it! Almost all of the tentacles / polyps have been eaten off of it, and the remaining few have been torn to shreds.

We only have a lawnmower blenny and a twin spot goby as far as fish go -- never seen either of them bother our corals before. We also have 3 scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp, a variety of "reef" hermits (some look like dwarf blue leg hermits, others like dwarf red tip hermits), and 3 scarlet reef hermits (red with yellow face). There's a small assortment of snails, too -- 1 turbo, 6 bumblebee, 6 margarita, and 6 astrea (our hermit and snail population is admittedly low at the moment). Any guesses as to who's the culprit?

[cstires]

Are you sure something ate it, or could it just be wilting away? I've had some of my frags do the same thing...

[fsn77]

It looks eaten... The stalk was about 2" long before I cut it, it shrunk when I cut it of course, and it had about 20 tentacles. The remaining 4 tentacles are definitely shredded like something ate it -- looks just like what our Lemonpeel Angel use to do the parent coral (we don't have the Lemonpeel anymore).

Could that much of it really wilt away overnight, even after being fine for the first 24+ hours?

[akula]

I put 2 camel back shrimp in my tank and they ate all of the xenia within weeks. had a good portion of the back glass covered and they mowed it down.

[matona]

My starfish mowed mine down like nothing.

[fsn77]

Well, someone decided to finish off the rest of it last night...

It looks like I'm going to need to find some way to protect the next frag. I have sea stars in my refugium, too, so I'm not sure that it would even be safe down there (if one of them was the culprit). I have some egg crate -- maybe I'll make some kind of shelf that suspends from the center brace up away from all the rock that can hold a frag or two.

[sassyfish]

I caught an earchant munching on mine late last night, when he thought I wasn't looking. I think the Arrow crab is cutting some too. But they are so good for the algae. Which one goes?! I sew my fags to the rock and they attach in 2 days. Could the Earchant be eating other stuff because he has eaten most of the algae?

[sassyfish]

I just read las night on suspension fragging. I put two frags this way, and they are doing better than any other piece I have in the tank. This way, nothing can get to them, including any algae growth or midnight snackers!

[fsn77]

I've thought of doing that since this has happened. I haven't come up with a way to do it that looks nice, however. Any pix out there of a way that doesn't seriously distract the attention away from the rest of the tank?

I'd just toss the frags in my fuge, but if the stars are chewing on them, they won't do any better down there.

[sassyfish]

Unfortunately, it is very distracting from the rest of the tank. PCV everywhere. Haven't quite got it down yet. I poke my eyeball everytime I sit to look at the tank!lol

[khrios]

My xenia looks to have been eaten in the night as well. The tentacles have the tops cut off and are white on the tip now. a few are left but, I'm not sure it will surevive. How do I get rid of the killer?

[fsn77]

First, you'll need to figure out who's eating it. Then, it might a simple fix, or a much more complicated one, all depending on what exactly is going after it.

I was talking to a friend today who said that his cleaner shrimp go after newly cut frags in his tank pretty aggressively and have eaten a few of his frags. That's probably what happened to mine.

I cut another frag today. I decided to put it in our refugium, where there's less potential culprits. I found a way to put it up out of the way so the only thing that can get to it would be the snails. It's on a very small piece of rubble, so I figured that I'd try setting it on top of a Mag-Float. So far, so good. I won't know if it's a good long term solution, as this frag is going off to a friend tomorrow, but I'll be putting the next frag I cut there, too. Hopefully, it'll be a good way to keep the newly cut frags from being eaten until they can recover, attach, and start growing. We shall see...

[khrios]

well I only have some softies, around 6 hermits, and a bunch of nassarius snails. I have no snails that I know of. There is no "clicking" sound at night, so I'm not sure if its a pistol, but maybe I am just deaf. Any other ideas? Would a picture help?

[fsn77]

No fish, khrios?
If you had a pistol shrimp, I doubt it would bother Xenia.
There's a flat worm or nudibranch (sorry, don't remember which one it is right now) that will feed on Xenia. If you can, try to look very closely at your Xenia. You'll be watching for something that moves very slow and is almost the same color as the Xenia. It's not likely to be all that large either and might be barely visible. If you find a suspect "spot," touch it gently a couple of times with anything and see if it starts moving more quickly. If so, there's your culprit. They can normally be picked off fairly easily (I use a plastic spoon), it can just be a tedious process if you find you have more than a couple to remove.

[ziggy222]

xenia can melt away over night and be gone in the morning if they don't like the water.i've never had anything eat it but i only use alot of snails of various kinds,no crabs or starfish.

[only4fudge]

They can melt away brown, and your cleaners could have ate it :D

Aside from that, dead xenias stink, I dont even know who would eat it, other than stinky crabs or snails ( clean up crew )

[only4fudge]

Ive had some xenias 2 branches, I left in a container for only 1 day, it was a small 1 quart pet carrier terrarium, woke up the next morning, the water so fowl, I dumped it on an another colony, to see if it would eat it up. Funny, those ants never came back to that spot again.

[ziggy222]

ok so your recipee for ant repellent is 2 stalks per quart of water,right?lol

[khrios]

yes, I have no fish right now because I am adding another 90 lbs of LR and thought that fish wouldn't do well. It's hard to see the colony now. It was a hitchhiker xenia inside a crevice in a big piece of LR. I have a colony that I bought and it's doing great, but the hitchhiker is still struggling.

[ziggy222]

well some kinds of xenia don't do well if their wild caught.one of them being bali.but you can get propogated ones that are hardier.i got typical pulsing xenia and can't kill it no matter what i do.i know lol,i've experimented alot with it.i cut off hands of it and put in bags of cc,i've cut stalks into peices,grown it on glass.i have some growing under half a watt per gallon for 2 months now.i have it under 5 watts.so far i have never lost a xenia.some tanks don't like it though.i had to take it out of my daughters thriving mushroom tank or it would have died.

[ziggy222]

i gave my neighbor some for free for his tank thats doing very well and it was gone by morning.he thought his was eaten but it just dissolved.

[crrichey]

When you cut the coral it releases chemicals that could signal distress to scavengers in you aquarium. Kind of like the smell of death, so they jump all over it.

[ziggy222]

have you ever smelled cut xenia?its anything but yummy.my gf gagged once while i was cutting it lol.

[kass03]

It still sounds to me like it melted.
Ive had xenia in my tank for years now and cut tons of frags but before that had a hard time keeping it until I started using reef plus.
When they melt the arms fall off and can look like something ate it.
I have several fish, pistol shrimp, hermits, several kinds of snails including bumble bee, tons of micro stars and never saw anything eat my xenia.
I have 2 kinds the pink pulsing and elongata.
I just cut off the heads and throw them on the bottom on some rubble in low flow to propagate them.

kass

[ziggy222]

hmmm,thats interesting.i use reef plus as well and 11 stalks have turned into 35 in 3 months.i've done all kinds of experiments and basically they can't be killed in my tank.maybe its the reef plus.

[crrichey]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7711148#post7711148 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ziggy222
have you ever smelled cut xenia?its anything but yummy.my gf gagged once while i was cutting it lol.

Doesn't need to smell good to attack scavengers ;)