Silver Pumping Xenia, Xenia Elongata is much like it's counterpart, Umbellata Pumping Xenia, except it has most beautiful silver/Green tips. Silver Branching Xenia is a rapid growing soft coral that is by far one of the most popular species available for any aquarium. It's hand waving movement brings your attention to it's soft, silvery grey and various shades of golden polyps that are silvery tipped. In rhythm, healthy polyps continuously open and close; whereas, an unhappy or newly acclimated one will remain still. Their relaxing display of pulsating movement can be mesmerizing and a real joy to watch. They bring an inviting motion to your aquarium that is most attractive. If you don't already have one, this will be a species that you will not regret adding to your tank.
Aquacultered
We aquaculture our own Silver Pumping Xenia here at Aquarium Creations, by cutting off fragments of our mother colonies. The Xenia we ship you is many generations aquacultured. This is very important since aquacultured Xenia are hardier than wild-collected specimens and are without the potential to carry sea born infections, or disease to your tank. They have lived there entire life under aquarium lighting and with aquarium type water flow and movement. A fast growing coral, provide adequate space between them and other types of soft corals.
Care Level
Moderate
Fragging
Always wait at least 30 days prior to fragging any new corals, giving plenty of time to become very stable in your reef aquarium. To frag, use a brand new razor blade. Find a section that can easily be cut and removed from the existing coral. When placing your cut fragment back into the reef aquarium you can more or less put it where you want it in the aquarium in a crevice and it will usually adhere to the rock in less than an hour. Be aware to choose a location with not to much flow in that spot so it will stay put until it adheres. Occasionally Xenia will release and float around until it finds a home it prefers but this is rare. Usually that only happens when initially placing it. After a few days as long as the Xenia is securely attached to a piece of rock you can move the new Xenia to another location in the tank. We always suggest not moving a new Xenia out of its original aquarium for at least 30 days. This allows the new colony to become strong and healthy.
Care Level
Moderate
Aggressiveness
Peaceful
Lighting & Flow Requirements
Silver Pumping Xenia coral requires a moderate level of water flow and a low to moderate level of lighting. Lighting can be Power compacts, T5's, LED's or even Metal Halides. All lighting can grow Xenia Corals as long as the proper level of light is provided. If a Par meter is available the appropriate lighting level is anywhere from a Par 80 all the way to a Par 250. Which is a wide range of acceptability. For lighting spectrum use between a 14-20K color spectrum for your bulbs for best coloration.
Placement
Placement can be any where in the aquarium as long as it receives adequate water flow and lighting levels. Also be certain to leave enough room around your corals that they have room for growth without infringing on another corals growing room or lighting.
Diet and Feeding
Xenia corals receive the majority of their nutritional requirements through the process of photosynthesis, which simply means their lighting creates symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae in the body of the leather coral which provides its nutrition. We do recommend providing supplemental food such as micro-plankton or foods designed for filter-feeding invertebrates.
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