Xenia

I bought my first coral today, a couple small frags of a purple xenia. Got the 2 of them for 10 bucks will post pics after the tank settles since I just did a WC and made it a little cloudy. How long before they start to open up again? I am afraid I might have damaged them, I acclimated them like a fish with a drip method over an hour but had a hard time figuring out where to place them in the tank and handled them a little bit to much. The lfs told me to feed them aquavitro fuel a couple times a week any other suggestions with their care?

 

Go slow, let em' grow! Xenia are an incredibly resilant coral! Low light and low flow is what they like. Mine have quardupled in size in the 3 months I have had them. I can almost guarantee you they will come back and grow in your tank!

 

Thanks for the confidence. I have not upgraded the light yet but plan on buying a new fixture within the next month so for now a T8 with a 50/50bulb. I put them up high in the tank since its low light and put them in areas with moderate flow. There are about 7 separate stalks and one fell off the rock and is on the sand but looks ok, should I take it out or will it attach somewhere on its own?

 

Mine did the same thing! I attached it to a rock that I had low on the sand, I am running LED's and the top of the tank is pretty bright. Anyway, it is growing like a weed on the sand. I would attach it to where you want it in your tank, super glue works pretty good for these guys.

So here is what mine looked like when I first got it a couple months ago.


This is a few days ago



Also don't worry if it doesn't pulse right away, took mine a good 3-4 weeks before it would pulse. Now it does it like crazy!

Vid I took.

 

Nice looking coral you have there, I prob will eventually put it on the sand when the new light gets put in since itll be to bright up where they are (about 5inches from the surface of the water and light) do you use any superglue found at the hardware store. I thought thatd be toxic to the tank

 

The gel type of superglue is just fine for the tank, make sure it has cyanoacrylate and you will be fine. Epoxy also can be used but some of it can effect your ph and your alkalinity until it is cured.

 

Here's a fairly recent FTS with the LED's

 

cool, good luck with the xenia

 

Let's say it is probably one of the most hardy corals you will get your hands on. I was siphoning out my tank a while back and managed to suck my entire frag in to the line... the only thing that stopped it from getting totally sucked through was the frag plug it was glued to! It even looked like it sucked the life out of it as the water right past it turned brown. I broke the siphon by kinking the line and pulled it out and it closed up almost completely and 2 days later it was back to normal and I would say a few days after that it was pulsing again...

The stuff is pretty resilient.

 

Thats crazy, hopefully mine will be just as hardy I knwo there are so many varieties.