Help with Xenia, how do I harvest?

92reefer · #1 10/10/2004, 03:22 PM

My pulsing xenia has been doing great and has now divided into about 9 stalks across the live rock in my reef. I sold 2 stalks to a local reefer. How do harvest or detach the stalks easily from the live rock? Do I use a razor blade? Can I peel it back slowly with my fingers?

Need advice please.....

RicksReefs · #2 10/10/2004, 04:14 PM

take a small piece of rubble & place it in the path of & just
touching the xenia. within a week it should attach to the rubble,
then slice the base off if any is still attached to the main rock.

92reefer · #3 10/10/2004, 04:42 PM

Seeing that the xenia is being picked up tomorrow and I don't have time to attach to rubble, is there anything else I can do to get them off the rock?

RicksReefs · #4 10/10/2004, 08:03 PM

ahh, then about the only thing i think you can do
is take the razor to it & have the recipient allow
it to mount itself on his rubble. trying to yank it off
the rock would probably stress it out to much, unless
there's a stalk or two just barely attached.

SDRotary619 · #5 10/11/2004, 02:40 AM

Try rubberbanding to a piece of live rock. Tell the recipient to leave it on there for ~3 more days and it should be attached. Just cut it low on the base and more will grow back in the same spot. Another thing is chipping away a small portion of coraline/lr that the Xenia is attached to, and super gluing that to your rubble.

92reefer · #6 10/11/2004, 04:33 AM

Great! thanks for the advice guys.

I'll give this a shot tomorrow

Frick-n-Frags · #7 10/12/2004, 08:34 AM

I used to just cut the whole salk off with scissors and set it in gravel to attach, then superglue the gravel to a piece of rubblerock or snailshell to sell. They tend to setttle face down and if they do, just leave them be, the polyps will migrate face up again on their own in a day or two.

z28cam · #8 10/12/2004, 01:40 PM

Do you have to have some of the stalk on the cutting or can you just cut one of the "arms" off and use that as a cutting?

RicksReefs · #9 10/12/2004, 02:14 PM

i've cut the arms off before & let them settle where ever
they wanted (in a 10G tank). a lot of them survived &
created new stalks/colonies. IME any part of a xenia will
create a new stalk. if i have a xenia 'bend over/stretch to
make another connection to the LR, i cut between the 2
connections & end up with 2 stalks.

cook · #10 10/14/2004, 09:26 PM

When they bend and attach, them they will almost always separate quickly on their own. If you don't cut they wont waste energy repairing.

Scuba Dog · #11 10/15/2004, 10:39 PM

Back when I had xenia I always placed some halameda adjacent to the red sea xenia..thus It would atach and off to the lfs I went to trade for salt or test kits, but recently all my xenia kicked the bucket...my rowaphos whyped out its food source, but thats a good thing since its a sps clam dominate tank..but try the halamedea worked great for me...