Elegance Coral

[Richard Kagen]

Bought an elegance coral at FFM, tried him now in two different locations. In a pretty shady spot now. Everything else from FFM (ok 15 pieces of coral) are doing well except the red goni. Elegance not really opening. He closes up at night but still pretty constricted during the lights. ALK 8.5, CA 470. Thoughts?

 

[gwolf83]

Bought an elegance coral at FFM, tried him now in two different locations. In a pretty shady spot now. Everything else from FFM (ok 15 pieces of coral) are doing well except the red goni. Elegance not really opening. He closes up at night but still pretty constricted during the lights. ALK 8.5, CA 470. Thoughts?

Sorry to hear that! I bought one also and its doing great. Have it up high and in the light. I've also fed it some shrimp.

 

[Richard Kagen]

i thought they went on the sand, no?

 

[gwolf83]

i thought they went on the sand, no?

honestly, I'm not sure, but it seems to be doing well up high so will leave it for now. I can send you a pic tonight.

 

[Richard Kagen]

honestly, I'm not sure, but it seems to be doing well up high so will leave it for now. I can send you a pic tonight.

love to see it

 

[afboundguy]

Alk may be a bit low... I seem to remember they like alk a little higher when I had an elegance...

 

[frank180reef]

Raise alk

 

[frank180reef]

Also low flow

 

[afboundguy]

Raise alk

WHAHAHAHAHAHA my brain does remember things!!! My wife would be mad that it's stupid things such as this and not important things that I should remember but oh well

 

[Richard Kagen]

Raise alk

Frank - target Alk? Testing with Hanna

 

[frank180reef]

I would shoot for 9.5_10

 

[gwolf83]

here is a pic of mine opening up

 

[Richard Kagen]

here is a pic of mine opening up

TY that's what I am looking for

 

[Richard Kagen]

I am out of the ALK reagent. I don't want to play with dosing without reliable test. It is due Friday when i will start heading slowly to 9.5-10 as Frank180 suggests

 

[Greg Hiller]

I'm not sure your tank parameters are the problem. I'll be the first one to suggest carefully managing the alkalinity of your tank and it can't hurt to keep it up, but...

Elegance corals are near bulletproof once established, but can be very tricky in the first month or so. Low flow and moderate light and no fish annoying them is ideal. They actually like a high nutrient tanks as well as they used to do really well in tanks back 20-30 years ago. Tanks back then also rarely had good control of alkalinity.

There's a well known problem with Elegance corals, particularly ones collected from the reef. Sometimes a short treatment with antibiotics can help. Julian Sprung discussed this many years ago. If you're going to consider such a treatment you need to do it very soon.

 

[Dr.Tom]

I run Alk at 8.5 and am a heavy feeder with large SPS colonies in my 120g. My elegance has very long polys and is in very low light below a large blue stag, 26" deep tank.