Help my elegance is dying!

Please help! My elegance is dying, is there anything I can do to save it?! The water tested fine this week, and everything else in the tank is great. I have a 120 gal, with 2 halides... The EC is in the sandbed away from the live rock, and it is getting plenty of flow and food. I just don't understand! Last night we put it in coral dip to make sure it wasn't a bacteria of some sort, but that seems to have made it worse. It started out with deflated tentacles, then it started sloughing, now it's skeleton is showing! All of this has happened within a weeks time. Please help, I can't bare to lose this beautiful coral!

 

Also, I am new to the forum, and can't figure out how to post the pictures from my phone.

 

Do you know if the elegance is of Aussie or Jakarta origin?

Jakarta elegance corals display dismal survival rates in home aquaria. They more than often do not survive for more than 6 months. Aussie elegance corals show the greatest survival rate in captivity. Elegance corals also prefer lower flow settings upon introduction.

Also, how old is your tank and what are your exact parameters?

 

The tank is about 4 months old, and I'm not sure about exact parameters. My boyfriend took a water sample to the LFS and had it tested. I can ask him later this evening if he remembers

 

Do you have a picture? You may want to look up Elegance Coral Syndrome. It is a fatal disease that effects Elegance corals. If this is the case, there is really nothing you can do about it unfortunately. Many people have had their theories however, it seems to be at least in part due to a contagious pathogen. Eric Borneman has done some research on it, however I don't think he came to a definitive identification of the pathogen.

If not, it could be other things. They do not tend to handle flow well, and seem to do better with lower to moderate light, although this depends on where they were collected.


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My elegance looked all sickly and I was afraid it was going to die. It had begun to pull off of the skeleton on one side as well. I dipped it really aggressively in iodine once a day for four days. Left it alone for about a week and dipped it again. It has yet recovered and I am not sure if it reattached but I can't tell where it ad pulled away from the side. It doesn't always work but if its on its way out might as well try right?? Good luck! It was 2 tablespoons iodine to 1.5 cups of tank water. Left in there and swished around for about 15 minutes.

Heidi

 

I do have pictures, but can't for the life of me figure out how to post them on here using my iPhone. You guys are great and have been SO helpful, I will look up the elegance syndrome, and also try the iodine! As soon as I can figure out how to post pics I will get them up!

 

We get quite a few Elegance in from both Australia and Indonesia. Indo's are tougher to acclimate...also some Indo's are poorly handled by the suppliers which can be an issue. Typically I find if all params are good in the tank and they haven't been mishandled in the supply chain, the biggest issue is protecting them from high light. It seems many of the Elegance being collected currently are from fairly low light environments. They will tolerate higher light if very slowly acclimated, but can't deal with large/quick lighting increases. Unlike many other corals they don't just bleach from too much light but are actually harmed by too much light. Hard to say without photos and more info, but based on what I know/typically see with Elegance moving it to a shaded/indirectly lit area would be my suggestion. Unfortunately from what you've described you may have a tough time...once they get to the point of tissue recession it's hard to turn them around.

 

Get the tapatalk app. It's wicked easy to post pics from iPhone then. Worthy investment if you plan on sticking around 3reef. Hope all goes well with your coral.