Xenia doesnt seem to be doing too hot

Ok so my pulsating Xenia seems to be struggling.

At certain times when i look at it. All of the heads seem to be very full and pulsating...happy.

Then i will look at it and one or two of them is just a purple shriveled up ball later in the day... wierd.

One of the heads (not really sure what to call it) did completely die (yellow circle in the pic). And it looks like one more might fall by the end of tomorrow.

So i'm wondering if the placement is wrong first of all. I read that they prefer to be on the sand? Its about mid way up the tank.

The the flow... its in moderate to high flow right now. The two returns that you can see aren't really high rate so its not as high as it might seem... should i move to a low flow?

The other thing is food... the guy i got everything from 3 weeks ago was really only feeding fish food (bad fish food at that) so my food is coming in today or tomorrow (reef chili). Could they just be starving?

My bubble coral and huge star rock are really thriving. Maize brain seems to be doing ok...not great

Am, NO2 and 3 are all zero. ph 8.3. I think SG is 1.022 or 23 but i have one of these crappy swing are P.O.S so that's more like a ball park. I have a probe for SG and PH that i just haven't had time to set up yet.

 

i would test for po4 and get a rectrometer...hydrometer are cheap devices and are usually not the accurate...mine is out .003 at least. when i go to the lfs i always get them to test for salinity and po4...u want the po4 to be .3 max much lowere if you plan of keeping sps..

 

I have a prob for SG...i just still need to set it up

 

and what about phosphates? if the salinity is correct you could bump it up a bit, to like 1.025 if your brain is suffering i could check po4 first. star polyps will strive even with po4 threw the roof. so i wouldnt use these as a guage to you tanks health...

 

also xenia is one of thos corals that can me impossible to keep with some and grows like a weed for others. what kind of lighting do you have?

 

Dude ill bring over my hydrometer tonight and we will get a perfect reading on your salinty

 

Sweet, do you have a phosphates test?

...Lighting is T5. Around 300 watts