First Coral!!!! Need advice

Tommy Gun · 11-24-2006, 09:43 PM

Hey everyone!

So today on my way home from my parents house, I stopped in an picked up 25 hermit crabs to start beefing up my clean up crew.

This LFS I went to though is going through some remodeling, particularly with their SW stock and they were offering almost every salty creature at 60% off. I was talking with a guy there and I told him how I was working on a reef tank but I wasnt sure that I was ready for corals just yet. I told him the whole story and he tried to sell me some Xenia. I said no because I wasnt ready and would need to research this stuff out still. He swore to me it was easy to keep and as proof, he gave me a small stalk of it.

This stuff is not the pulsing kind, and I believe he said it was 'thin branch Xenia'. Here's a couple of pictures of it in the bag (floating in my tank). Maybe someone could ID it for me exactly:

So, as you can see, it is not attached to a rock (probrably the reason he gave it away for free). He did give me a little plastic cup though and I cut a hole in the top of it and poked some holes around the sides like this:

So, is this a proper way to go about this? I put the cup in a spot that is closer to my lights and I can easily change the amount of water current this Xenia is going to be in. Is there a good rule of thumb here as to how much water flow it should be exposed to?

I know that this is all really sort of unplanned and dumb, but it was free and I know I can learn easily from this situation. I also have some food for it called "DT Premium Reef Blend Live Photoplankton". The directions on the bottle state that I should put in 1 tsp per 15 gallons of water, but the guy at the LFS said I could probrably do less or at least less often because this is the only filter feeder I have in the tank right now. What would you guys suggest to do or what other food might be better (and cheaper, this was 10 bucks for 3 fl. ounces) in your opinons?

Thanks for any help and putting up with one more of my snap decisions!

Tommy Gun · 11-24-2006, 10:03 PM

Oooops, I should have mentioned that in the cup is a small peice of live rock in the cup (not that you couldn't see that or anything), but I am wondering how long it might take for this coral to attach to the rock or if there is anything that I should do to help support it taking ahold of it?

gm333 · 11-24-2006, 10:46 PM

I wouldnt feed by the instructions. Just add a small dose every third day. Zenia is very hardy, it would probably live if you didnt even feed it. Just leave it in the cup with the base touching the rock, it should attach itself in a week or two.

Tommy Gun · 11-24-2006, 11:16 PM

Thanks GM! I put it in the cup about half an hour ago and it almost instantly "opened up" to be bigger than it was before. It seems like it will stay in the cup so that is good. I put in a bit (three capfuls) of the photoplankton stuff. It really smelled bad! Almost like my skimmer collection cup sometimes does. I figured that it couldnt be bad since the expiration date is in febrary of 2007 but I am still wondering about putting it in there...

I also wondered about Iodine since the LFS guy said I should be supplimenting with it. Supposedly, the reef crystal salt I just put in the tank with my last water change has some Iodine in it...would this be enough for one small coral? I also have that Fire Shrimp in there who apparently has already molted because it looks like I have two of them right now but only one is moving so I am guessing that what I am looking at are some of its old antanae. As I understand it, the shrimp would need iodine in the water to molt so I must have some in there right now. Is it worth me buying a bottle of the stuff and adding it in there or should I wait to see what happens?

gm333 · 11-24-2006, 11:24 PM

I personally dont dose Iodine, of course I have never tested for it as well. I was told that my waterchanges will take care of replacing iodine until I get a lot of corals.

Tommy Gun · 11-25-2006, 02:11 PM

Thanks again GM!

I sort of figured the same thing about the Iodine and of course, right now I dont have a whole lot of life that is going to be 'sucking' it out of the water at a very rapid pace.

I took off the top of that cup I put the Xenia in becuase it had its 'arms' hanging out of it and I was worried that the cut plastic would be too sharp for it. It has really expanded a lot and right now it is at least three times the size it was even when I saw it in the LFS's tank. It seems to be 'holding' itself between the small peice of live rock and the side of the cup. Will it attach itself to the rock this way or should I try to move it back to the top of the rock? I dont want to hurt it at all so for now I am just going to leave well enough alone.

This thing does look nice in the tank, even though the cup is awefully distracting. I am getting excited to put some more corals in the tank. I think it will really brighten things up and make the tank much more interesting. I have also been keeping an eye on the two angelfish I have since they supposedly can pick at corals once in a while and havent seen anything like that happening. It does look like one of my green chromis likes to hide in the cup though!

gm333 · 11-25-2006, 04:49 PM

If he attatches to the cup instead of the rock, once he is attatched cut the cup aorund the base and superglue the plastic piece to the rock, he will grow over the piece and attatch to the rock as he grows. The good news is he is opening, that means he is healthy. Its amazing at how such a small thing can expand itself so big. He wil also probably end up pulsing from time to time. Mine will pulse for awhile then stop.

Tommy Gun · 11-25-2006, 05:57 PM

I was told that this is not the 'pulsing' type of Xenia and I wish I had more time right now to do the research I want to on my tanks, but I have some boring work to get done on strategic business management. Blah, blah, blah! The things I do to get a better job in order to buy more fish!

I was also wondering about what this coral is going to attach to. It is holding some crushed coral or other type of substrate sized rocks from the tank it was in at the LFS. I am thinking that this wont matter, but thought I might check with you guys to see if it might happen that this coral thinks it is attached to something when it really isnt?

You are right about how big these creatures can get. Right now it almost fills that entire cup which isnt a beer mug, but it isnt a shot glass either so I am pretty impressed with it. On the end of its little 'arms', it looks like a feather duster sort of. I put in that food last night and so I hope it is getting some of that. It is weird to think that it is eating something that is too small to even see. See, I am just overly amazed at all of this life and it is too cool that I have it in my living room!

Tommy Gun · 11-26-2006, 03:46 PM

Here are a couple more pictures of the Xenia that I just took:

As you can see, I took the top off of the cup because it had some sharper edges that made me a bit leery since the coral had its branches or arms sticking up out of it. I moved the cup around today to see if it had stuck itself to the rock like it looked as it may have done, but it wasn't which is ok since GM told me about the one or two weeks as being the likely time period before it would attach itself.

Still, I am starting to wonder if it is going to be a good thing for it to get stuck to such a small peice of live rock. I have been thinking about taking it out of the cup and putting in in this hole in a peice of live rock:

I just thought that it may be better for it to be stuck to a bigger rock and if you look close at this picture^, it would be sheltered by two other rocks on each side. I am still not sure if the water current would be too strong for it to stay there or not. I know that there are no powerhead nozzles pointing directly at it, but there is some strong currents running throughout the whole tank that I can clearly see when I put brine shrimp into the tank.

In any case, I am not going to do anything until I get some feedback from you guys on this one. I am still not 100% sure on what type of coral this is other than being Xenia and so I am not able to really pinpoint my research. I have seen some pictures of similar looking stuff, but a lot of them are fan worms or feather dusters and so I figured I would pick your brains for a precise name before I read too much further.

gm333 · 11-26-2006, 04:04 PM

Tommy, you said there was some substrate the xenia had attatched to right? Are there a lot of pieces attatched to it, if so you can superglue the small substrate to a bigger piece of rock or plug.