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Questions about GSP and Xenia.


ThatNewGuyReefing

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ThatNewGuyReefing

Ok so my tank is now cycle and I have begun adding corals. So far I have only added GSP on an isolated rock. But im curious if I can add other species to the same rock such as branching GSP and neon green GSP. As for Xenia, I'm looking at adding Pink pulsing xenia but would also like to add blue and white to the same rock. If not I'll mount pink Xenia to the back wall and doing some other coral like birds nest or frogspawn on the empty rock. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

Equipment:

- nuvo 10

- one eflux wavemaker

- 50w heater

- kessil a150w 5inches above the water

- spin stream rotating nozzle

- Filter sock

- bag of carbon

- salinity by aquavitro (water changes are every Friday)

- using RODI water for water changes.

(Getting ATO next month, so far I just keep track of my water level and top it off as needed)

- will eventually run a chaeto reactor to strip extra nutrients between water changes.

 

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If you put gsp on 1 rock, I wouldn't add other corals to that rock as they will compete for space. 

Gsp has been known to take over and so can xenia so I would keep these separate from each other.

 

You can mix the xenia together.

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ThatNewGuyReefing
43 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

If you put gsp on 1 rock, I wouldn't add other corals to that rock as they will compete for space. 

Gsp has been known to take over and so can xenia so I would keep these separate from each other.

 

You can mix the xenia together.

So I can put purple, white and pink together? Also will Xenia kill other corals like bird'snest or zoas? I wanted to put a bird'snest as the centerpiece and have mixed zoas on the sand.

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Xenia and GSP will compete for available space with other corals. They won’t kill corals as much as overgrow them. They’re amoung the “crabgrasses” of marine growths, lol.

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ThatNewGuyReefing
On 1/6/2019 at 5:28 PM, Oldsalt01 said:

Xenia and GSP will compete for available space with other corals. They won’t kill corals as much as overgrow them. They’re amoung the “crabgrasses” of marine growths, lol.

Will they kill each other? And what do you mean by overgrow them"?  Do they choke em out like weeds to grass? Can I just prune them back? I plan on having zoas on the sand(I wanna try doing a nice carpet of different zoas haha) do I need to worry about the xenias over taking them?

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2 minutes ago, ThatNewGuyReefing said:

Will they kill each other? And what do you mean by overgrow them"?  Do they choke em out like weeds to grass? Can I just prune them back? I plan on having zoas on the sand(I wanna try doing a nice carpet of different zoas haha) do I need to worry about the xenias over taking them?

They will literally grow all around and even over other corals unless the other coral stings them(I have yet to see another coral effect xenia growth)

 

Xenia can block light to other corals so putting a birdsnest near xenia is questionable.

 

Xenia should be kept on it's own to prevent them taking over an area(they will need pruning to control them)

 

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ThatNewGuyReefing
2 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

They will literally grow all around and even over other corals unless the other coral stings them(I have yet to see another coral effect xenia growth)

 

Xenia can block light to other corals so putting a birdsnest near xenia is questionable.

 

Xenia should be kept on it's own to prevent them taking over an area(they will need pruning to control them)

 

You have been extremely helpful, so I guess I'll have to have a stinging centerpiece then. Any suggestions? I'm so used to planted tanks where plants just intertwine haha (I understand corals are animals and not plants). But that's what I find so interesting about coral keeping, they remind me of one big game of domination.

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2 minutes ago, ThatNewGuyReefing said:

You have been extremely helpful, so I guess I'll have to have a stinging centerpiece then. Any suggestions? I'm so used to planted tanks where plants just intertwine haha (I understand corals are animals and not plants). But that's what I find so interesting about coral keeping, they remind me of one big game of domination.

I love xenia. I have yet to see it be effected by a stinging coral. I'm sure someone has but I've had xenia right next to frogspawn and the xenia still grew.

 

It's highly recommended to keep the xenia on it's own rock- it still can spread as they stretch and attach to other surfaces.

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How exactly do you "prune" Xenia?

 

Also can you grow it up a wall?  If so how is it best to do it?  Do you just glue a bit of egg crate to the wall with the frag on?

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You can grow on t a wall .  I wanted to have my back  wall of BioCube covered with GSP . What I did was clipped off the stem of frag plug and glued the disk to the back wall.  Right now it is still just growing out on the disk but filling in . That’s how I’m doing it . 

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On 1/8/2019 at 2:37 PM, mattitheowl said:

How exactly do you "prune" Xenia?

 

Also can you grow it up a wall?  If so how is it best to do it?  Do you just glue a bit of egg crate to the wall with the frag on?

Check out my post on the “Coral Forum” here titled: “GSP growth -10 weeks” and you’ll see how quickly this stuff grows. I glued 5 tiny strips of GSP with cyanoacrylate glue to a smallish rock in July. By Nov it had pretty much covered the rock, continues to grow, throwing out mat extensions onto my sand, and the fronds have gotten MUCH larger. It seems to grow anywhere light is sufficient. If you’re putting it on a back wall on an AIO, be careful. It can clog your filter uptake grates. As for trimming, I found a pair of scissors work just fine for cutting off “frags” from the mat edge. Or youcan just peel the mat off the frag plug and glue that in place. Just try NOT to glue it to your fingers, like I did, lol.

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I glued the rock my Xenia on to the back wall with super glue.

 

My Xenia hardly grows...but my hammer coral grows like a weed. My bird outgrew my Xenia..

 

:eek:

 

My guess is my back wall gets light but not as much as the other coral is getting.

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My Xenia is going great guns so far.  It was the first thing in the tank post cycle.  Since 22 December it's at least doubled in size and I can already see that it's doubling again so likely in the next 7 days it will have quadrupled.  It's still nice and small though and not even taken the whole frag plug yet.  I've sited two small rocks next to the plug though hoping that at some point it will frag itself on to one of those and I can move it in the tank.  I'd quite like it to grow in the corner under the return nozzles on my Evo as it's a little bare down there but I'll wait until I've got a decent stock of it before I start unsettling it.

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ThatNewGuyReefing
On 5/18/2020 at 8:48 PM, Sandy Andy said:

I am unable to delete this post.

Damn this is an old one I posted ages ago 😂😂. Now I'm running a nuvo 20 with mostly SPS hahaha. Automated waterchanges using 2 channel dosers and I run the ns-80 skimmer that overflows into a 7 gallon bucket. I learned my lesson with GSP and Xenia, now I went with encrusters on the back glass and sticks on the rocks.

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