Elegance coral and light over exposure

foxt · Sep 19, 2017

I have had a nice elegance coral for almost a year. It's one of the Aussie's, and has been slowly growing. I feed it once or twice a week, mostly mysis. My water parameters are typical for a mixed reef: 8dkh, 410 calcium, 1350 mg, ph fluctuates around 8, sg 1.025.

About four days ago, I turned my t5 fixture on at night to look at something in the tank. I forgot to turn it off. Then I went away for three days. My tank-sitter didn't notice that the light was on 24 hrs a day (no blame there).

I've returned to find a variety of issues, one of which is my elegance is not looking happy. It's only opening up about half way, and the tentacles are looking, well, shriveled. I tried feeding it a little today, and it did close up on the food, but it's just not looking "normal".

Can it be stressed over the constant exposure to light for three days? Anything I can do at this point, other than wait and watch?

Bouncingsoul39 · Sep 20, 2017

Yes, that could definitely stress out corals. To help with the issue, I'd leave the light off for 3 days to let the corals recover. Besides that, it's just waiting. You mentioned a "variety of issues" though, so maybe some fresh carbon and a partial water change are in order to help with that.

foxt · Sep 20, 2017

Thanks. I have been doing small water changes daily, and based on your suggestion, I will go ahead and change to fresh carbon.

I fed the elegance today, and it did capture food in it's tentacles and eat it, so that is a good sign. Still not fully inflated though.