Xenia Not Pulsing but still Doing Great?

[Dark_Knightt]

So some of you may have seen a while back how my xenia was basically disintegrating, but then it came back and is growing like a weed! But for some reason, it stopped pulsing. It has only very slight movements. Im confused as to whats happening, because its growing a new polyp every day or two, but for some reason it isnt pulsing. Any reason as to why? *It doesnt even get that much flow, It gets almost no flow at times, very light flow usually.

 

[footgal]

they pulse to grab nutrients out of the water. Now that we understand why they pulse we can try to encourage that.

So they pulse to get nutrients out of the water, therefore nutrients have to be present. If they’re in stagnant water (no flow) there’s no new nutrients being carried to them and therefore, no pulsing to grab it.

They’ll also develop more cilia (feathery stuff on each tentacle) to filter the water better in higher flow, much like how a clove polyp gets more fluffy or a zoa gets a longer skirt.

best of luck!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Xenia is a good way to tell what your alkalinity is doing in the tank. When it's low the pulse motion slows down. When it gets too high you will see that when the xenia pulses the tips don't come together at the same time, the pulsing will be disrupted.
The motion of the polyps sweeps water up and away from the coral tissues and into the surrounding water. Midday, Xenia stops for about an hour to expel waste which many are unaware of

 

[RedFrog211]

they pulse to grab nutrients out of the water. Now that we understand why they pulse we can try to encourage that.

So they pulse to get nutrients out of the water, therefore nutrients have to be present. If they’re in stagnant water (no flow) there’s no new nutrients being carried to them and therefore, no pulsing to grab it.

They’ll also develop more cilia (feathery stuff on each tentacle) to filter the water better in higher flow, much like how a clove polyp gets more fluffy or a zoa gets a longer skirt.

best of luck!

Just curious: I was taught that no flow promotes pulsing, because it has to manually catch the nutrients; where as Xenia in flow doesn’t need to work to gain nutrients. Very interesting

 

[footgal]

Just curious: I was taught that no flow promotes pulsing, because it has to manually catch the nutrients; where as Xenia in flow doesn’t need to work to gain nutrients. Very interesting

Huh, I just learned this through hypothesis and experiment, nobody ever taught me anything about xenia. I've got some directly in the line of a powerhead and it gets tossed around like it's in a hurricane but it's super fluffy and if I turn the flow off, you can see that it pulses like crazy. I assume it also does this when the flow is on but the thrashing from the flow obscures it. I've got some around the back of the tank that migrated itself there, it's very thin and doesn't pulse except very very weakly every couple of seconds, basically just twitching. This one grows slower than the high flow one and looks sickly, so I decided to take a frag of it and introduce it to medium flow (gentle sway back and forth, like a hammer) and it looks and pulses like average xenia.

It took me like 8 months to do all this so I think it's pretty solid, and it all occurred in the same place so there was no difference in water params from specimen to specimen. I'm not sure if the amount of light available matters, that's my next experiment

 

[RedFrog211]

Huh, I just learned this through hypothesis and experiment, nobody ever taught me anything about xenia. I've got some directly in the line of a powerhead and it gets tossed around like it's in a hurricane but it's super fluffy and if I turn the flow off, you can see that it pulses like crazy. I assume it also does this when the flow is on but the thrashing from the flow obscures it. I've got some around the back of the tank that migrated itself there, it's very thin and doesn't pulse except very very weakly every couple of seconds, basically just twitching. This one grows slower than the high flow one and looks sickly, so I decided to take a frag of it and introduce it to medium flow (gentle sway back and forth, like a hammer) and it looks and pulses like average xenia.

It took me like 8 months to do all this so I think it's pretty solid, and it all occurred in the same place so there was no difference in water params from specimen to specimen. I'm not sure if the amount of light available matters, that's my next experiment

Definitely some strong evidence! Haha very cool

 

[Dark_Knightt]

The heads pulse, but the tips dont come together fully, if thats helps. So do I have to raise alkalinity?

 

[footgal]

The heads pulse, but the tips dont come together fully, if thats helps. So do I have to raise alkalinity?

Do you test for alk?

 

[Dark_Knightt]

Do you test for alk?

Alkalinity is kH right?