10 gallon - soft corals

[Reefermadness]

my first tank was a 75 FOWLR. then a 2.5 pico reef. now ive got a 10 gallon. its been set up and running for probably 4 months
all of my equipment, live rock, supplements.. pretty much everything for the tank is free so some of it isn't very ideal
filtration is a zoomed 501 stuffed with de nitrate and polyfloss
just added a seaclone 100 skimmer
20lbs live sand.. 10 lbs rock
25% water changes once a week. sometimes biweekly....
2x T8 15w actinic + 10,000k...12 hours a day
tested after a w/c results are as follows
Temp - 76 SG - .023 Ph - 8.4 Alk - 2.5 Meq
Nitrate - 0 Nitrite - 0 Ammonia - 0

im keeping zoos, ricordea, rhodactis, mushrooms, leather polyps, kenya tree, GSP, and xenia.. the only fish i have is a scooter blenny

so with all that info on the table i can get to the questions

my xenia is always really mad. looks very skinny and not pulsing at all. its been like this for about a month now

nothing is reproducing as far as i can tell. maybe just the zoos... is it something with my setup? maybe the lighting? i dose phyo 5x a week and microvert 3x a week

 

[reeferguy]

Thats a pretty small tank. Maybe thats why?

 

[G-Tank]

How much do you feed your 1 fish?

 

[sanechka2005]

Its very hard to keep stable water parameters in 10g

 

[Reefermadness]

the scooter gets fed once a week 2 or 3 frozen mysids

ive noticed my pH and alk change very randomly through the week. maybe adding a fuge will help. i planned on adding a 5.5 with some macro and a DSB

 

[G-Tank]

from my experience xenia's love food/fish waste. I have never had any issues with them even when I had a 6gal nano cube. now that I recently tok off my filter socks. these bastards are more crazy active lol.

 

[IEreefmaster]

As easy as this question is. It probably has a pretty complicated answer, as it could be a bunch of different possibilities.

Xenia grows like a weed in most people's tanks, however, what many people don't realize is that as Xenia grows it depleats the water of trace elements and iodine faster than it can usually be replaced.

In a smaller tank, this can happen very rapidly as a the amount of minerals in the water is not very substantial. As a result your Xenia will not look puffy and happy. As far as pulsing it is common for Xenia (Yes even pulsing Xenia) to stop pulsing.

As everyone else is saying, Xenia prefer dirtier water and with only having one fish I highly doubt there is enough pollutants for the stalks to absorb. If you feed the one fish too much, it could have adverse effects on water quality, raising nitrate faster than it can be extracted. Your water quality will go down, along with all other corals in the tank.

If I were you I would do a series of water changes and see if that perks things up a little bit. if it is a 10 gallon tank, I would do a series of 5g water changes and see what happens, if it does nothing after say maybe 5 or so. Then go on to other measures.

 

[Reefermadness]

As easy as this question is. It probably has a pretty complicated answer, as it could be a bunch of different possibilities.

Xenia grows like a weed in most people's tanks, however, what many people don't realize is that as Xenia grows it depleats the water of trace elements and iodine faster than it can usually be replaced.

In a smaller tank, this can happen very rapidly as a the amount of minerals in the water is not very substantial. As a result your Xenia will not look puffy and happy. As far as pulsing it is common for Xenia (Yes even pulsing Xenia) to stop pulsing.

As everyone else is saying, Xenia prefer dirtier water and with only having one fish I highly doubt there is enough pollutants for the stalks to absorb. If you feed the one fish too much, it could have adverse effects on water quality, raising nitrate faster than it can be extracted. Your water quality will go down, along with all other corals in the tank.

If I were you I would do a series of water changes and see if that perks things up a little bit. if it is a 10 gallon tank, I would do a series of 5g water changes and see what happens, if it does nothing after say maybe 5 or so. Then go on to other measures.

ill try the big water changes. normally it percs up whenever i do any water changing so your idea definitelly makes sence

 

[IEreefmaster]

ill try the big water changes. normally it percs up whenever i do any water changing so your idea definitelly makes sence

Ya, I would do a couple consecutively. So say starting this coming Moday, I would do a 5g water change. Wait a day or two and do another 5g water change, wait another day or two and do another 5g water change. From there I would try and do a 5g water change every week for a month. You should notice that your tank will "Perk up" and stuff should start to take off. If that is the case then you know that your "Sad Tank Syndrome" had to do with waste export. When you do a water change you are taking out 5g of high nitrate water, or low element water and putting in fresh high element and low nitrate, therefore reducing and replenishing the waste and elemets in the water column in your tank.

It should work, I have a 70g display and a 30g sump and I usually do a 20g water change every weekend. My corals have never done better.

 

[Reefermadness]

Ya, I would do a couple consecutively. So say starting this coming Moday, I would do a 5g water change. Wait a day or two and do another 5g water change, wait another day or two and do another 5g water change. From there I would try and do a 5g water change every week for a month. You should notice that your tank will "Perk up" and stuff should start to take off. If that is the case then you know that your "Sad Tank Syndrome" had to do with waste export. When you do a water change you are taking out 5g of high nitrate water, or low element water and putting in fresh high element and low nitrate, therefore reducing and replenishing the waste and elemets in the water column in your tank.

It should work, I have a 70g display and a 30g sump and I usually do a 20g water change every weekend. My corals have never done better.

what about 25% daily? my nitrates are 0-5 between water changes but low elements definitely makes sense

 

[IEreefmaster]

what about 25% daily? my nitrates are 0-5 between water changes but low elements definitely makes sense

You can do what you want, I was just thinking, if you changed half your water your elements will go up dramatically, so you will probably notice a change in the xenia's behavior right away. If you continue it will only get better....IMO.

 

[Reefermadness]

You can do what you want, I was just thinking, if you changed half your water your elements will go up dramatically, so you will probably notice a change in the xenia's behavior right away. If you continue it will only get better....IMO.

thanks for the advice the huge water change caused my xenias to grow new heads the next day
plus i got some T5HOs :top: