xenia died, removing?

gonephishin'

one of my xenia stalks died, turned all black with white tips...how should i remove it?

fish_4_all

Remove the stalk and as many of the roots as you can. This will help rpevent decaying plant matter from causing dead pockets in the substrate. Also make sure to do a good gravel vac in the area if you can.

SKAustin

Pssst.. Xenia (along with every other coral) are animals.

Carefully peel the foot from the rock with an exacto knife or scalpel, and discard the carcas. If you have a good number of scavengers in the tank, you may not need to worry about it.

fish_4_all

Oops, guess I should have checked what forum I was in. Sorry Austin.

SKAustin

No worries.

Gonephishin, Let us know how you fare. Also keep a good eye on the rest of your Xenia if you have any. I lost nearly all of my Xenia in one fell swoop. It turns out that Xenia thrives in dirty water. If your water is nice and clean, it could ne detriment to your Xenia. But in the right conditions, Xenia will take over a tank.

caferacermike

Always pull Xenia at the first hint of something going wrong. The stuff is highly toxic as it breaks down. Pull the clump from the tank and smell it, you'll understand immediately.

ziggy222

even healthy xenia smell bad.yuk.i pull about 10 stalks a month from my tank to keep it under control and throw it away cause it has almost no resale value around here.some store around here was going to give me $5 for 30 stalks so i dumped them outside rather than sell them at that price and have been tossing it ever since.but yeah it smells bad and some kinds worse than others.its not that bad for the water but yes siphen it out,any dead coral for that matter should be removed if its big.

fobguy

Hi, I been trying to grow xenia's but have a little or no experience in doing so, any secrets or additives that you use?

ziggy222

well they hate change.that means fluctuating salinity,temperature calcium,magnesium,alk,ph,just about anything that changes fast will hurt them.some people know something is wrong when the xenia wilt.i know that xenia love reef plus made by seachem.garf.org has a mountain of information on xenia and sells it.also you need about 3 watts per gallon in a shallow tank for it.shallow as in a 20gallon