Pulsing Xenia: The Rebound Story

Pulsing Xenia As Found At The Pet Store

My attraction to Pulsing (or Pom-pom) Xenia had to do with the active polyps. When you see them at the pet store pulsing away individually, you can see how they might educate and remind someone that corals are indeed part of the Animal Kingdom (duh!). This blog entry is the story of how my Xenia lingered in my tank and then regained its activity after paying closer attention to water parameters.

I purchased some green Zoanthids which happened to have pulsing Xenia on the same rock (Pet Kingdom). So I received two types of coral for the price of one Zoanthid colony!

As with most corals, they may change appearance or growth as they acclimate to conditions you've set in your tank. The water, lighting, temperature and additive parameters will most likely not match that at the pet store. At the early stages of my reef keeping (March 1^st, 2007), I had a 65-gallon Uniquarium with PC lighting.

On July 4^th, 2007, I upgraded to a bigger tank. Slowly, I added back several corals and switched from artificial to natural sea water (NSW) available at the Scripps Pier in La Jolla.

As time progressed, I noticed that some corals grew fine while others were not-so-fine. The Xenia seemed to be struggling and I read online about how they would just melt away in some tanks. Mine wasn't melting away; it was hanging on. It actually progressed slowly up the live rock where it split into two colonies and sat like a lump most of the time. I was just waiting for it to do its disappearing act.

Two Pulsing Xenia Colonies "On The Verge"

The tank parameters that I chose were mainly for keeping fish. But, as I researched further online, I decided to focus on three things:

1) Lighting: I switched over to Aquaillumination LED lighting (Reefgeek.com). The LED lighting was finally installed on March 4^th, 2008 after waiting several months.

2) Nitrates: I installed a 20” LifeReef refugium with a 6” Deep Sand Bed (DSB) to aid in providing an amphipod/isopod population as a food source for the fish and for growing algae to absorb nitrates and phosphates (October 31^st, 2007). The levels never seemed to fall below 10 to 20 ppm. So, I tried out Seachem de*nitrate and brought down nitrates to undetectable levels (April 13^th, 2008). Read about my nitrates here.

3) Calcium, Alkalinity & Magnesium: In my hands, undiluted Scripps NSW consistently measured at 420 ppm Calcium, 8 dKH Alkalinity and 1050 ppm Magnesium. The Calcium and Alkalinity were expected values for NSW, but Magnesium should have measured around 1250 to 1350 ppm. Therefore, I raised the Mg levels every day by 100 ppm with Seachem Reef Advantage Mg until levels were at 1350 ppm (April 28^th, 2008).

Pulsing Xenia Responding to New Conditions

Picture taken on April 27^th, 2008.









Finally, the Xenia looks just like the specimens found at the pet store. Now that I'm enjoying seeing this specimen in my tank, I've become a little leery about how much further this will progress. I've read that in some conditions, Xenia can grow out of control and become more of a pest. I placed a rock on top of one of the colonies and it moved, over several weeks, to regain optimal light exposure. I can now trade it with other hobbyists!

Pulsing Xenia Like You See In The Pet Store