I have somewhat of a xenia problem, i like the stuff but now its over growing most of my other corals, ive decided on trying to frag it by cutting it and placing it inside a tuperware with some rocks in the same tank, my question is, will all this cutting result it much dead tissue that adds significantly to the bio-load of the tank?
Xenia can sometimes be a pain but, the good side of this is that most LFSs will buy it from you if it's mounted to small rocks.
Whether the dying tissue, from cutting, will add significantly to the bio load of your system depends on the size of your system and the method of filtering used. If you have a Nano, maybe. If it is truly getting to be a problem, you may not have a choice.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
thanks for the response, the xenia is in a 30 gallon with a rena xp2 canister filter and a refugium, i dont have a skimmer and im sure thats why the xenia is thriving so much, i really do not have a choice anymore, what was once a nice huge healthy cluster has invaded my zoa, covered my mushrooms and surrounded my button polyps, the only coral that seems to keep the stuff at bay is my star polyp coral, i have room in the 30 for a cup to put the cuttings in to propigate it on some small rocks, i do have a 6 gallon nano cube i could use, the only problem with that is it host a single specimen, a condylactus that almost completely takes up the whole 6 gallons and that thing is troublesome, it loves to kill corals
my main concern is, when i slice them back with a razor do the stumps die off or come back quick? i just dont wanna turn my tank into some toxic soup with all the dead coral matter,
the tank is only 6 months old but the LR came from my previous tank which i had for 2 years, i just got over a outbreak of hair algae and my tank seems to be really stable right now, i just dont wanna make my situation worse being its such a small system
I know a lot of people cut their Xenia, but I have a slightly different method.
I move a piece of live rock next to a stalk or stalks and direct the current so it directs the Xenia toward the rock. In 2-3 days the stalks will eventually attach themselves to the rock and you can move the rock out of your tank. I had to do this with some Xenia that was touching my Candy Coral.
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as you can see xenia has envaded everything, my buddy told me id get sick of the stuff after awhile, all that came off a frag the size of a match box car 6 months ago
IF you have another small tank you, you could frag it off and sell it Xenia is a great nutrient exporter, so harvesting it would be a GoodThing(tm), IMHO.
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OK Matt, you got a real problem there. Thanks for the picture. Your going to have to frag that stuff off and find a local store to buy it from you. One word of caution about doing that...most LFSs would rather give you store credit than cash. You can accept that if you want BUT, cash is better! Cash is KING in this economy!
As a hobbyist, here's what I'd do with Xenia frags. Get a few "heads" on small rocks, well attached and pumping. Bag some up in separate bags and head for two or three LFS. Take one bag in the store and ask for the OWNER. Show him what you've got and say, I'm fragging Xenia for SALE. Could you use some? He'll say, "How much"? Don't get greedy here. It's important to know they buy at wholesale (cheap) and that's the way they think. If you said $5 a frag, he should be interested. If he goes for it, great. Tell him you have a few more in the car. You should have 5 or 6 total the first time.
You don't want him to know you are doing this because the stuff is crawling out of your 30 gal trying to eat the cat. Do this with a few stores and you may find yourself "in business". I know a guy, a friend, who made a small fortune doing this. He expanded his business into a full blown greenhouse operation and specialized in EASY TO GROW soft corals and some LPS and SPS and sold to wholesalers only. The details above may be slightly off skew from what he actually did but, it's accurate enough for this story. You may have heard of my friend, Anthony Calfo. That's how he got his start, in a nut shell.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
to TR.
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Xenia is a great nutrient exporter, so harvesting it would be a GoodThing(tm), 
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