Snails devoured my Pulsing Xenia's

[FloridaFishFan]

Almost immediately after acclimation I put a live rock with about 10 Xenias
into my tank. I noticed the snails checking it out and the next time I looked
the Xenia's were almost gone. Today the rock looks like it never had anything on it. What did I do wrong? I am devastated as I really looked a long time before I found this established group.

 

[Tasty Burger]

Welcome to the club of "Can't Keep Xenia To Save My Life"

I've tried three times, and my tank is over 4 years old now..Some people can't keep em, and others can't get rid of them. They melted; that's what happened!

 

[greech]

How did you acclmate them? IME Xenia do not like ultra clean water.

 

[RiVerfishgirl]

How did you acclmate them? IME Xenia do not like ultra clean water.

They did fine in my extremely clean reef tank. But I also had LPS so I was neurotically dosing and monitoring all of my trace elements, calcium, iodine, etc.
I also had a 4ft 4x130 watt Orbit CF strip on my 90g, and they seemed to like all the light. It made them grow like crazy.

FloridaFishFan, I've never seen snails eat xenia. I think they probably just melted. But don't give up, because I've actually seen them melt to visibly nothing and then start growing again.

 

[jayghmi]

I would buy those snails if they really existed!

 

[DoctaQ]

i too would buy some snails haha, they dont always transfer tanks well, give it a while and try again, but my suggestion is not to keep xenia because it will overgrow everything.
my tank is pretty clean and they are doing great, im surrounding them with favias and acans to keep them at bay