why is my xenia doing this?

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/geckoguy14/DSC01253.jpg

It will retract its polyps every once in a while and then after 10-15 mins they will extend and start pulsating again. Could this be tied to the "burnt" look that some of the undersides of the "flower petals" have? I havent seen any of those slug-liek things and i still cant catch my camel shrimp.....still not falling for the trap i got for it. And i thought it was just one of my crabs scaring the xenia but when they retract, there's no crabs or anything around it.

what type of additive/supplements are you using or have used in the recent past

What's the high and low pH of your tank? Try measuring the pH just before "lights out", and then again just before "lights on" to get an indication of how far the value swings at night.

Xenia are pretty sensitive to pH swings and I've read or heard that anything under 8.3 can be generally bad for them. I think Anthony Calfo's coral prop. book is where I read the 8.3 figure.

i use seacham reef enhancer and reef fundamentals packs. I add the appropriate amount of one of the bottles in there every day. I have each bottle labled with the day, and amount that needs to be added.

Could it be the melafix?

Could it be the melafix?

Steven Pro tested MelaFix and it's effect on Xenia in a recent "reef-safe" chemicals experiment.

He wrote an article about this in Reefkeeping Magazine, June 2006 (http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/sp/feature/).

I don't recall when dosing Melafix of it having any effect on my xenia. My BTA really didn't like it :yuk:but it was fine after I finished dosing.

I have heard from alot of people that Sometimes Xenia grows like weeds in some tanks and just dies off in others.

I had some myself that started as 1 stalk, grew to 5 or 6, then just started to decline and die off. It was in the same tank the whole time and I didnt do any out of the ordinary changes to it.

I read somewhere (again, maybe one of the WetWebMedia guys or one of Calfo or Fenner's books) that there's often a correlation between Xenia die off and declining pH and that they prefer 8.3 or higher.