I’ve got a small dilemma. Per usual, as in, every summer, I get a little lax about tank maintenance. So this last week has been spent doing a bit of cleaning, water changes, scrubbing, scraping, rearranging, and what not. The dilemma is this: Xenia umbellata. I know it’s the scourge of many reef tanks out there, but I like it. I dislike most forms of Xenia, but the Red Sea variety, in my opinion, is a spectacular animal.
Over the last couple months, it has been spreading like mad. I’ve had a patch of it in my tank for +2 years, but it is just now that it has decided to take off, and it getting a bit out of hand. So that leads me to a related dilemma: my clownfish. My pair of A. percula took this Xenia as home within 24 hours of being put into the tank, and the momma defends it to the death. I’ve been considering fluke tab removal of the Xenia, but I don’t want to deprive the clowns of their home.
My 2 thoughts have been a) once the tank gets back on track and I’ve manually removed as much as possible form the areas I don’t want it, possibly the once again clean water will keep it contained as it used to be. Or, b) remove the rock w/ Xenia that the clownfish host in, QT it, fluke the tank, and then put the rock back in. The issue I have with ‘B’ is that I am afraid any leftover trace of the fluke tabs may kill of the Xenia I wanted to save… but the plus side of ‘B’ is that I also have some anthelia and GSP that I definitely want no trace of, ever again, and the fluke tabs may take care of that…
decisions, decisions…
Off to do some reading on experiences with fluke tabs… here’s a video (cloudy after extreme maintenance). See, how could one possibly take the clowns from that xenia… I think they’d be devastated :). Check out the Ecsenius stigmatura about 1:30 in, cleaning out the kicked up sand from his hole. Also think I may have to hack down the M. capricornis a bit to re-position that rock.
*Post Script - I’ve halted all dosing of Fauna Marin products while I continue renovation. I am still running a reactor / stones, but have stopped all Power Trace, Bak, AA’s, etc. Until I get a grip, just sticking with bi-weekly doses of Prodibio bacs and carbon source.
glassbox-design
says:
The clowns in the xenia is pretty damn cute. I would go with the manual removal route myself…. but it did look like it has a pretty good hold.
I really like the positioning of the Cap and the placement of the acro colonies. How are you thinking of changing it up?
Jul 30, 2008, 10:26 amadmin
says:
The clowns are too cute I think, and they love the stuff.
I’m thinking on demolishing some of right side of the cap and twisting that whole rock’s left side more toward the front, so the cap is more in the back right corner… it’ll always keep growing. There are 2 rocks in the tank, the main one in front that;’s visible in the video, then one behind it hidden in the dust with a few encrusted colonies… I need to do something to help bring those to the forefront, and to get all the rocks away from the xenia patch, a buffer zone, if you will…
Was also considering removing colonies from the second rock and putting them on the biggest one, just a single rock in there. I had to give up last night since it was so cloudy. So I’ll make some more decisions tonight when I can see…
Jul 30, 2008, 11:07 amjeffry r. johnston
says:
So what’d you decide?
Jul 30, 2008, 3:37 pmadmin
says:
Manual removal. Gotta get around to doing it, but that’s the ticket I think.
Jul 30, 2008, 11:39 amTMRKarie
says:
Xenia is like a weed in a reef tank. However instead of trying to “kill” it off consider fragging it for another to enjoy. This will help you keep it weeded and under control and will also help the hobby pay for itself by selling some of your stock. Also acquacultured coral grows better than wild caught.
Jul 30, 2008, 8:20 pmhttp://www.themainereef.com
Status Report on Stony Reef Aquarium | StonyReef.com says:
[...] xenia is now under control. I spent a good hour one morning ripping it out of all the crevices. I figure that will be a [...]
Jul 30, 2008, 12:38 pmadmin
says:
@ Karie
It certainly is like a weed. The worst though is the Anthelia sp. I’ve since gotten Xenia under control and decided it’s just something I need to do every couple months. The anthelia is killing some of my stonies though …
it needs some serious attention, aka covering with epoxy.
Jul 30, 2008, 10:27 am