ok for the life of me i cannot keep xenia, toadstools, finger leathers, etc alive. the toadstools are alive but do not grow. what are the tricks to these corals? i know my lights cant be to strong as i have 2 36w PC's over my 29g biocube. any suggestions?
Ok I wont touch the xenia, thats a wacky coral. Mine is alive and growing slowly but I cant say much else on them. Now the leathers, I have a toadstool as a small center piece near trophy size, that is giving me slow growth under t5x4ho but very happy and healthy. It is in medium/high flow. I think I was getting better growth in medium flow. I have a devils hand on the larger side. Same lights and This thing is in high flow and is always open, droping fingers, or babies however you want to look at it. And in a month or two has grown right back to the size before it sheds. I have tons of these guys. Lfs have gotten a bunch, as well as a few other people. This thing is growing like crazy, I have at least 20 or so frags randomly growing in the tank where they land. And Ive sold/traded twice that many. So my two cents would be toadstool, low to medium flow and devils hand, high flow. I also have cabbage leather that is alive and healthy looking but hasnt done much of anything in over a year. Any ideas outhere about the cabbage leathers? Now Ive heard xenia dont get along with skimmers. I have a decent skimmer on one tank, and my pulsing xenia died off in that tank. I have the same xenia from a split in a different tank with a crappy skimmer and the stuff is doing ok. Not great but ok. Maybe people are on to somthing with skimmers and xenia?
ya i mostly want to keep the fluffy pulsing stuff. i have a skimmer but it probably doesnt do much of anything(it is the oceanic biocube skimmer). the toadstools have always been in a medium -high flow areas and the cap just wont grow.
You're on to something with the Xenia medwards. They tend to like "dirtier" water and generally don't fair well under nutrient poor conditions. As for the toadstools... IME when small they tend to grow slow but once they get to some critical size (different for each coral) they take off. Flow probably has a lot to do with it.
I have some pulsing xenia in a 46g under 4t5vhos that is growing great and looks incredibly happy, and we do have a very crappy H.O.B skimmer on there. I also have some formerly normal xenia under 28 watt t5s, then I added another 28 watt t-5 and it started pulsing. Very interesting coral, I would love to know more about it!
250 watts seems like a TON for a 20G :/. I have upper medium flow on the red sea pom pom xenia in the bigger tank with a skimmer, and I have considerably less flow with the xenia I have in my own tank.
The xenia I have that is alive is in my 29g biocube with the bio cube skimmer. I agree I dont think it does very much. Stock pc lights, just split a week ago, had two stalks now I have three but it has been awhile since it has done that. And I cannot keep it in the other tank with a decent hob. Lasts a few months and melts away.
Chort - Wow that is funky lol. I've been able to keep everything except a small piece of SPS I stuck in there for my YCG a while back before I found out I couldnt keep those. I've had frogspawn, galaxea, zoos, xenia, and gsp in my little tank. In tank filter FTW! lol
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tricks to keeping xenia happy?
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