pulsing xenia

[golden69_ca]

what would cause my xenia not to pulse i have run multiple warter testes. all ok . the only thing that consernes me is that mu ph is only 8.2 i heard xenia like 8.5 . is this true .

thanx for the help

[christyf5]

What's your alkalinity?? Apparently they like a higher alk too.

Christy :)

[BCOrchidGuy]

How old is the tank, how often do you do water changes, do you filter your tap water????

Xenia likes strong light and NEEDS iodide, if you are not doing your water changes, and you don't have a good quality aragonite bed your Xenia may need Iodide suppliments, DON'T just add Iodide though it is easy to over dose and too much is worse than not enough.

[Troy F]

FWIW, I had the biggest clumps of pulsing xenia that you can imagine in my old 72gal and it pulsed through low alk and no addition of iodine. I'm not sure why yours has stopped pulsing but I'd guess low pH (or at least check that as a possible reason). I've also read what both BCOG and Christy have suggested, I know I had low alkalinity and my Salifert test kit showed no reading on iodide whatsover (I have to think I had some in my system but have read that hobby level kits are a waste of money and I tend to agree). Xenia is a funny little creature, it will thrive in one set up and crash in another for no apparent reason.

[AJ_77]

The only thing I could tell that ever affected the pulsing of my xenia was lighting. The more the better - in lower lighting it would slow down and stop altogether.

[golden69_ca]

dont get me wrong it is actually growing just not pulsing any more my kh is at 17 . i thought that was to high . i do a 20gal water change aprox every month . its a 90 gal tank . it has been up as a 90 for 2 months but the system was origionaly a 50gal that was up for 5 months . my tanks lighting is 2 4'vho and 4 4't3 actinics . they also prefer low flow ?

thanx for the help

[golden69_ca]

i moved it into a lower turbulant area earlyer tonight an it receded . i just checked the tank and they are starting to open back up and pulse they aren't full out lets see if they stay pulsing

[smokinreefer]

i, like troy, have found xenia to be a most mind boggling creature.
i have kept xenia for several years and i still do not know what makes it tick.

FWIW, i have some xenia elongata, the most common of the xenias, and while most people find this xenia to be extremely easy to keep and display rapid growth and spreading, that has never been my case. although it remains healthy, it barely grows/spreads.

i do have great success with another variety of xenia.

i would not chase numbers of alk/pH in hopes of enticing the xenia to pulse. if your tank is healthy and stable, i would leave it that way. my water parameters are fairly stable, that is, any changes dont occur overnight. but i have kept xenia in low and high alk, probably pH as well.

though my xenia has never stopped pulsing altogether, it has slowed down at times, and at times it pulses very rapidly.

i don't think water flow or light affects its pulsing either.
i have some xenia near the top of my tank (400W MH) and right infront of a powerhead, and it still pulses. i also have some xenia on the sand bed, and it pulses.

i know that doesnt help you much, but i personally would just let the xenia be, as long aas it is still healthy.

the only thing that pops into my mind is this, perhaps the xenia pulses in order to feed itself. if this is the case, you think the xenia would regulate its pulsing on how much food source is readily available in the water column. more=less pulsing, less=more pulsing in order to meet its feeding demands??? just a theory.

[Bartman]

I have high Alk and my pH is 8.5 and my Xenia doesn't pulse either. I've tried high flow, low flow, no flow, doesn't make any difference. It does appear healthy though. Go figure. :?

[Nullig]

Same with mine... seems healthy, just won't pulse. I've even prayed to the Xenia Gods and left offerings of nubile young virgin snails, but still no pulse.

Bad Xenia Karma, I guess.

Noel

[BCOrchidGuy]

Xenia doesn't feed out of the water column it is strictly fed by photosynthesis. I think your Alk is way to high should be in the neighbourhood of 11 dKH. I would stop using buffer/Kalk and just use a good Calcium with no buffer, and measure your Alkalinity daily until it is down where it should be, THEN start with a balanced calcium suppliment like Kent Liquid reactor... Once I set my Ca and Alk levels where they should be the Kent stuff works like magic.

[golden69_ca]

here is the funny i thought it was to high becouse of the kent buffer so i proceded to do a 50gal water change . i got an idea to test my ro water had a 4 dkh then i added my kent salt to the mix mixed it all up to the right salinity and tank temp tested the water 16dkh seamed to be to high thought there might be buildup in my 300gph pump i use to stur up the water . dumped out all the water tore apart the pump and cleaned . no build up or signs of any thing at all . started agean ro tested @4dkh (i also use ro treatment by kent does not make a diff in the reading ) added salt and mixed tested 15 dkh . maybe a bad batch of kent i dont know .

[BCOrchidGuy]

Your R/O water has a hardness of 4 dKH? the Kent salt would account for the final hardness then as I find it mixes up to a KH of 11.

You must be on a well, when you do a KH test have you done any Ca tests or Mg tests on your water? When is the last time you changed your R/O membranes and finally do you use a DI filter after your R/O unit, if not you should get one as it further polishes the water after the R/O unit is done with it. Remember R/O water isn't all that clean, it is cleaner than out of the tap but not real clean. IF your water is really bad a R/O unit will clean most of the stuff and the DI filter will clean the rest of it, the R/O unit saves the DI so it doesn't have to be replaced as often.

Aquarium Pharmaceuticals makes a Tap Water Purifier, a De ionizing filter and it will give you water that compares to distilled water. It is about $45 for the unit and the filter refils are $36 at King Ed Pets. I find the refil lasts me about 6 months as long as I don't try to do more than 10 gal/hour, then the filter comes apart.

[Bob I]

Xenia grows and pulses very well in my Calgary tap water. I like to keep it under control so I put all I had in a 10 gallon nano. The lighting is 26W of PC lighting. I had noticed it did not pulse, but it now pulses very well. I don't worry about Alk and Calc, because it is our tap water after all. As I say, no problems with pulsing.

[deano]

Will Anthelia sp. pulse or does it simply wave in the current (waving hand)?

[BCOrchidGuy]

Mine waves, doesn't pulse.... grows like a weed too.

[kgb]

my doesnt pulse at all
mine came from tonys tank and in his tank it pulsed every other second so i asked for a peice and it grows well but doesnt pulse at all

[BCOrchidGuy]

Mine all seemed to recover from the Greenex treatment and they are all pulsing again nicely, One has about 30 baby Xenia's growing around its base.

[Bob I]

At this time it seems like the best answer is that sometimes it pulses, and sometimes it doesn't. There seems to little rhyme or reason. When it feels like it, it pulses. It seems best not to worry about it. JMTCW :wink:

[Nullig]

I've noticed with mine that it pulses only in the morning before the lights come on. As soon as the lights go on it stops. I believe it's teasing me.

Noel

[Diomedes]

Deano makes a good point here...Anthelia spp. (A morphologically similar member of the Xeniid family) are commonly mistaken for Xenia and can have a variety of care requirements...I have thought before that Anthelia are the root of the confusion about the care requirements for Xenia spp, because not all Anthelia spp. are easy to care for...just ask Ranz...he has an anthelia in his 300 gallon tank that he has moved around when he saw that it wasn't thriving in its present location after a suitable period. On another note, some Anthelia spp. pulse, though not as many as in the Xenia genus. It takes a trained eye to tell some species apart (so I hear) and since I don't have that training I will now shut my mouth.

Stephen

PS - anyway I think you have true Xenia you gold-toothed beer-chugging secretary. Keep your pH above 8.3

[smokinreefer]

well ranz, if you wawnt some anthelia that is super hardy, let me know, i can most definitely hook you up.

i have some that survived a rio pump disaster. a couple months afte the crash i saw the tiniest single polyp emerge from the original rock it was on. from there, it has grown like there is no tommorrow.

[golden69_ca]

i guess mine will never pulse i have done water changes tested everything myself along with 3 diferent stores . luck of the draw i guess i might take them back to where i got them and put them back in the origanal tank and see if they pulse and get some water from there and fully test it to see how off im from there .

[smokinreefer]

honestly...i think your efforts would be like a dog chasing its own tail.

why not grab a couple frags from different people and see if any of those will pulse for you. maybe you will find a strain that does well for you.

if your in the area, i could give ya a frag to try.

[golden69_ca]

i work in burnaby that might be a good idea . the only thing that baffulls me is that it was pulsing when i bought it .

[golden69_ca]

last night im watching the tank as normal . found a penut worm :biggrin: then i was checking my stowaway king emerald crab when out of the corner of my eye i noticed the small heads of the xenia pulsing i was so happy and by this morning most of the larger heads are pulsing. i guess these are the trials for a fish tank . have not done any thing differant as of late . oh well i guess ill go with the flow .

thanx for all your help everyone

[Van down by the river]

I know it's a little late to reply, but anyways, here goes

I noticed Nullig mentioned his pulse in the morning. I believe this may be caused by a day to night PH swing. As the Ph is rising in the morning it reaches a threshold that"triggers" the Xenia. Once the PH rises above this target zone, the pulsing stops. Just a theory. It reminded me of a section in Anthony Calfo's book:

"Average seawater has a pH of approximately 8.4 and every attempt should be made to maintain seawater within tenths of a point of this target. Some species are quite sensitive to declining pH. I recall watching colonies of Xenia in my greenhouse, numbering more than one thousand individuals, stop pulsing en masse when the pH of the system fell below 8.3 and promptly resume pulsing when I corrected it. I do not mean to say that the pulsing of Xenia is only related to pH levels because I do not believe that to be true. However, the imposed stress of a depressed pH is certainly one catalyst that appointed the cessation of pulsing Xenia. It was quite a sight to see and very predictable as I ran digital pH meters on Xenia grow out systems that would practically announce the event with an audible alarm when the pH fell to a low point on the program."- Anthony Calfo

If your Xenia cease again in the future it would be interesting to see the results of numerous pH tests through out the day/night to see the correlation.
Anyways, with any luck it was just a one time thing.

[Bob I]

This is not related to pulsing directly, but may still be interesting. Due to the weedy nature of some Xenias, I don't want a lot of it in my main tank. I thought, however, it would be nice in my nano. So I had three small pieces in there. The 10 gallon nano became the temporary home for an LTA. There are some zoos, blue mushrooms, and cabbage coral in the tank and all do fine. I noted, however, that the smaller pieces of Xenia died very soon after the introduction of the LTA . The biggest piece was still alive, but its tentacles looked as if they had been burned off. I moved that piece back to my main tank, and it recovered. I am thinking that the LTA released something into the tank, because it was not in direct contact with the Xenia. :frown: