xenia looking bad ???? longish

[Brimc]

My tank has been up for over a year and going great. The Tank specs are as follows.
29 Gal (soon to be 150)
18" CPR HOB refugium w/sand rubble and cheato. tons o pods
10 gal sump with sand, rubble cheato, and pods.
whisper 300 used as a chemical filter Carbon.
Skimmer is a old DLS wooden airstone type but it is pulling good skimmate.

Main tank has 20 lbs live rock, 3" carbisea sand bed, fire goby, sm clown, and a sm hippo tang, and the usual clean up crew. A dozen or so mushrooms and 7 stalks of xenia. The readings on the tank are,

PH 8.3
KH 110
ammonia 0
nitrate 0
nitrite 0
phosphate 0
calcium 400
temp 78
salinity 1.021
Water changes are done every other week at 10%
The only things that have changed on the tank are new lights and a carbon change. I went from 1 20 watt daylight and 1 20 watt actinic 420 so an orbit 4 X 96 watt fixture. I am only using one bulb at a time so the light increase is for 40 watts to 96 watts.
My problem is that my xenia looks like it is melting. yesterday a few heads were floating around the tank and today it looks small and again like it is melting away. One thing is that it is pulsing away. Any ideas on what I should look for? The mushrooms are fully opened and looking great.(thanks PHreef) Oh yeah the fish show no signs of stress.
Brian

 

[denvig]

Is this realy a bad thing (sorry I had to say that) salinity 1.021 That sounds a bit low should be 1.025 +/- It just may need to adjust to the new lights. If they are pulsing thats a good sign.

 

[Brimc]

The xenia have been being good and not spreading. so far

 

[MarkO]

Yeah, I agree that the salinity is pretty low. Probably ok for fish, but I'd try to bump it up to 1.025 as Dennis says.
Oh yeah, and if it takes off and covers your entire tank, don't blame us

 

[denvig]

The xenia have been being good and not spreading. so far

Ah those famous last words.

Wait till you get better lights.

 

[Brimc]

better lights? don't say that too loud. I told the better half that these were one of the best systems. 384 watts on a 29 gal? and halides are out of the question.

 

[joefitz]

Xenia meltdowns are fairly common. I've never heard anyone identify any specific causes. Some people believe it happens when iodine levels are too low in the tank, others when there is a pH change... I've had numerous such meltdowns in my tank but unfortunately, usually no more than a handful of stalks (out of hundreds).

For what it is worth, mine has always grown back, right from where it melted down...

 

[NateHanson]

What's your alk level correspond to? I'm not familiar with those KH units (110?)

 

[frank180reef]

My money is on the Low salinity

 

[Brimc]

Well good news on the xenia. When I examined the xenia and tank closely it looked like the xenia was melting. What had happened was the xenia released some of its heads. I found 5 or six new heads growing elsewhere in my tank( and quickly moved them back to the original coloney). On the stalks where the heads came off of there are now little tiny hands growing.

 

[nickyblase]

the nice thing about xenia (if you actually want it, that is!), is that it's practically bullet proof. I put some in my tank as a newbie, and thought I killed it, but back it came, and in droves!