Xenia pulsing - Light

[GeoSquid]

Ok, this is anecdotal at best I bought some xenia about a month ago and it was pulsing most the time I had it. I've moved it to multiple places and it always pulsed. A week ago i did some rearranging and moved it again to a less lit spot. It took a couple days before it stopped pulsing. I did some researching on the web and found the majority thought flow was reason for it to stop pulsing. I had it in multiple flow areas that didn't seem to bother it, but the last move definitely caused it to stop pulsing. I moved to a higher light area near the top of the tank and by the next day when the lights came on it started pulsing. I read an article that said the pulsing had something to do with photorespiration or something like that. Anyway, higher light seemed to trigger it in my case.

 

[Spare time]

From my understanding, the best evidence is that pulsing is an adaptation to increase the rate of photosynthesis. When oxygen levels are increased in the water,, the behavior becomes energetically wasteful and therefore this may be why they do not always pulse.They note in this study that it more specifically deals with nutrient and waste exchange.

Pulsing corals: A story of scale and mixing

Effective methods of fluid transport vary across scale. A commonly used dimensionless number for quantifying the effective scale of fluid transport is the Reynolds number, Re, which gives the ratio of inertial to viscous forces. What may work well for one Re regime may not produce significant...

arxiv.org

 

[Megshark15]

Hmmm mine pulses more in ultra low/light and flow

 

[GeoSquid]

Hmmm mine pulses more in ultra low/light and flow

How low is low light? I have a glass brace in the middle of my tank with no light over that area. I moved the xenia to that area when it stopped. I have the lights angled so they light the middle of the tank but it's like a mushroom happy kind of spot.

This was the article I read.....

Pulsing Xenia mystery solved | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

The pulsing Xenia has been a scientific mystery for that last 200 years since it was first discovered by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829). Why does this particular coral spend so much energy…

reefbuilders.com