I HATE XENIA!!!!!!! DIE XENIA DIE!!!!! *pic*

[SCIronMike]

I am cursing myself for putting xenia in my tank a year ago. It grows SOOOOO fast. It has overgrown EVERYTHING. It has overgrown all my SPS... smothering all but one to death. My 60g is now basically all xenia from left to right. I cut it back, it grows back. I go on vacation for 5 days, and I come back and it has DOUBLED in quantity. Coralline algae covers my entire tank every 4 days also. I am frustrated..... darnit When I went on vacation on Saturday, the glass was clean and there wasn't nearly this much xenia.

[antony1103]

Well, i would be happy with your coralline growth. I would frag the xenia, sell it/trade it, and hit whats left with some kalk paste.

[minimalist]

Wow.

[joeychitwood]

Amazing! (Both the rapid coralline growth and the Xenia infestation.)

[Harold Edwards]

I don't see how coralline can grow that much in 4 days. are you sure it was just 4 days?

[SCIronMike]

Originally posted by Harold Edwards
I don't see how coralline can grow that much in 4 days. are you sure it was just 4 days?

Not the edges of the front glass where it is really thick, but the spotted areas. Last Friday evening, I scraped that part clean with a razor blade. Then I left for vacation on Saturday. Just took that pic 30 min ago. That is basically 6 days growth.

[tangy2]

lol, that's a lot of xenia's!!

[Jimbo327]

You are my hero. You are a coralline god.

[DaveJ]

Well there are known ways to get xenia to melt and die off, pH swings will do it, temp changes will as well. Manual removal is best though but even if there is a little left, it will grow out.

What else is in your tank? Is any of it hardy enough to survive those swings or going lights out for a few days?

[pledosophy]

Stop dosing calcuim already if you hate the coraline.

For the xenia, spend an afternoon, frag it out, take it to a store and trade it for more stuff, perhaps replace what the xenia has killed. many store will take xenis trades, you could skip the fragging part and just trade them for equal weights of rocks to.

I might consider an urchin as well if I was in your shoes.

HTH

[ganjero]

I think xenia and anthelia should be consider a pest for reefers. I had the same problem. I got rid of the xenia first but the anthelia took me forever. I gave away a lot of free xenia and anthelia and finally I had to take out most of the rock with anthelia and just let it dry for a few days. I still have some but only on the side wall of my tank where is very easy to control (but I think I should get rid of that too before y goes swiming back to the rocks)

Reducing the photo period will help controling the growth of both (xenia and coralline)

[Ritten]

So the front glass (except for the edges) was scraped clean 6 days ago?

[davocean]

I trim my zenia about once a month.
Last month I made $200 and gave away like 10 frags.
Pays for my tank and then some.
That's some gnarly coraline, lots of scraping and no $ to be made on that one!

[DaveJ]

Originally posted by davocean
I trim my zenia about once a month.
Last month I made $200 and gave away like 10 frags.
Pays for my tank and then some.
That's some gnarly coraline, lots of scraping and no $ to be made on that one!

Scrape with a hose pulling out the spores and such and put into baggies.. trade it as seeding Just dump it into another tank, it might take root.

[SCIronMike]

Originally posted by Ritten
So the front glass (except for the edges) was scraped clean 6 days ago?

Yup..... and I just did it again now. While I was in there, I made a kalk slurry in a dixie cup and used a 22 gauge 1.5" needle with a 5cc syringe and injected half a dozen of the xenia with the stuff. Let's see if they will die!

[SCIronMike]

New pic after scraping the coraline off and trying to poison some of the xenia......

[jacmyoung]

I like the xenia garden you have, I am not kidding.

[pluvialis]

oooo

[Goodwood]

shoot your alk to about 16+ DKH it will die but so will many other corals. I made thousands of of $ on Xenia until everyone in town had it.

[Panduriniii]

wow that is out of control! i would take out the rock and remove it by hand or soak it all in RO water

[BrassMonkey]

where do you live? id love a big hunk of xenia. stuff as mutch as you can in a box for me.

i had some red sea xenis grew slow. i think the lighting upgrade is that killed it.

maybe if i show you how bare my tank is, you will take pitty on me.

[Brenden]

Oddly enough I went to the LFS yesterday to buy a xenia frag but they were out. I had removed from the display over a year ago. I was going to try it in the fuge as a nutrient export.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Originally posted by jacmyoung
I like the xenia garden you have, I am not kidding.

I kinda like it too!

Why don't you just make this your frag tank?

[SCIronMike]

Originally posted by BrassMonkey
where do you live? id love a big hunk of xenia. stuff as mutch as you can in a box for me.

i had some red sea xenis grew slow. i think the lighting upgrade is that killed it.

maybe if i show you how bare my tank is, you will take pitty on me.

I'm in So Cal, Huntington Beach to be exact. If you want some, you're welcome to it.

[corals b 4 bills]

Iv'e never seen a reef tank in a snow storm