Elegance coral - freshwater dip fail?

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Oh yeah! That is a world of difference from the first photo. I hope mine gets to that point. Are the blue tips a certain variety? I'm wondering if mine will have those one day.

Blue/ purple, seem to be most common. All depends on if it has them or not. There are all sorts of colorations and tip colorations. So could be without seeinv it before closed up. Just a few hours apart.

 

[Jimbobalou622]

Morning folks! I’ve been reading former posts about elegance coral and apparently they can be a mystery when they get sick. I read that a freshwater dip can sometimes help remove unwanted critters that maybe an iodine dip/coral rx dip might not have.

My situation is mine has been looking puny with tentacles withdrawn for a couple weeks.

During the last week I dipped in Coral Rx and it looked a little better for a day or two. A few days ago I tried Seachem Reef Dip that seems to be mostly iodine. Yesterday I read here about freshwater dips and tried it last night. Lots of little critters/tiny worms came off. I let it soak for 7 minutes.

When I pulled it out to rinse and get back in the tank it was utterly pathetic. It just looked like a smooth ball of wet tissue. It broke my heart to see it and think I screwed up. 10 minutes later I checked and it was coated with slime. Some was waving in the glow.
This morning I took the picture you see and at least you can see some little nubs of tentacles. Just by that it looks like maybe there’s hope.

Any advice. Leave it alone? Anything I can do to help it more. Right now it is under blue and white lights in mild flow.

Last night I tested salinity 1.027 and PH is 8.1. I was going to get a test at my LFS today. I’m including the last full test I had from last Wednesday. Also I did a 2.5 gallon water change 3 days ago as well as last night. I’m trying to get my magnesium up as well.

Tank is Fluval 13.5 and was set up beginning of October 2023.

Freshwater dips can be deadly for the elegance

 

[Enad]

You are correct and in hindsight I should have stopped at the first dip. I'm really regretting the other ones. My rational was that one was iodine, the other was the Coral RX (don't know what the special sauce is in there) and then the FWD. Poor guy.

Oh wow, so it will be a long recovery. That's good to know - I was expecting a few days or a week. I'm going to stick with it. I hadn't heard of ECS until I read the post about what to do if your Elegance is sick. What caught my attention was someone mentioned that a FWD is a good way to get rid of pests that might be bugging it that coral dips might not "shake loose". And it did have a LOT of little critters immediately jump ship.

I went home for lunch and moved it from on top of my rock to down on the sand in a lower light area. Tonight my goal is to fine tune flow. Thanks for the good advice!

If your Elegance isn't able to pull through, don't fully lose hope! Elegance corals are quite tough but when you get a healthy one and are able to give it stable parameters and plenty of food, they can be very hardy.

I try to feed mine a few times week, whether that be with AB+, Reef Roids, or pieces of LRS. I've always read that they benefit from frequent feedings, so that's what I do. Though don't try to do this while your coral is ailing.

In the future, if you end up getting another Elegance, you'll definitely want to wait until your tank is very well established(1.5 years or more) and even better, if you're able to setup a small quarantine tank just for the Elegance, that will do wonders. Elegance corals seem to suffer from poor light acclimatization, and often die due to being introduced to a tank with lights that are too intense.

I recently got in a very rare Rasta Elegance, and I've went out of my way to setup 15 Gallon quarantine tank months prior, as to allow the quarantine tank to mature in preparation for this Elegance. You'd want to use live rock, no sand, and just do weekly water changes. I keep a Kessil A80 on the lowest intensity and the Rasta has been looking fantastic the last few weeks since I got it. I plan to keep it in here for 2 months or so, slowly bringing up the lighting intensity in order to get it acclimated to what my display tank will be like.

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

If your Elegance isn't able to pull through, don't fully lose hope! Elegance corals are quite tough but when you get a healthy one and are able to give it stable parameters and plenty of food, they can be very hardy.

I try to feed mine a few times week, whether that be with AB+, Reef Roids, or pieces of LRS. I've always read that they benefit from frequent feedings, so that's what I do. Though don't try to do this while your coral is ailing.

In the future, if you end up getting another Elegance, you'll definitely want to wait until your tank is very well established(1.5 years or more) and even better, if you're able to setup a small quarantine tank just for the Elegance, that will do wonders. Elegance corals seem to suffer from poor light acclimatization, and often die due to being introduced to a tank with lights that are too intense.

I recently got in a very rare Rasta Elegance, and I've went out of my way to setup 15 Gallon quarantine tank months prior, as to allow the quarantine tank to mature in preparation for this Elegance. You'd want to use live rock, no sand, and just do weekly water changes. I keep a Kessil A80 on the lowest intensity and the Rasta has been looking fantastic the last few weeks since I got it. I plan to keep it in here for 2 months or so, slowly bringing up the lighting intensity in order to get it acclimated to what my display tank will be like.

Never had an issue needing a mature tank for an elegance. Not sure where that is from. But nothing wrong with waiting.

 

[Enad]

Never had an issue needing a mature tank for an elegance. Not sure where that is from. But nothing wrong with waiting.

It's not a requirement, but more so a general recommendation. As I mentioned in my last post, I have my Rasta Elegance in a 15g that has only been established for ~2 months but ultimately you need to have experience to care for an Elegance coral. It's not the right coral to plop into a beginners first tank.

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

It's not a requirement, but more so a general recommendation. As I mentioned in my last post, I have my Rasta Elegance in a 15g that has only been established for ~2 months but ultimately you need to have experience to care for an Elegance coral. It's not the right coral to plop into a beginners first tank.

Just to be clear, i see no issue waiting either and sepending on person can be great idea. I think its more issue for beginners just due to knee jerk reactions and not understanding they go through changes and not always going to be happy. Then thngs like this happen. I think with just more info it can be but this is one needing patience and understanding. So at the same time to contradict myself lol. It isnt due to this lol but with a bit of knowledge can be if tgis was more known.

 

[mdpitts]

If your Elegance isn't able to pull through, don't fully lose hope! Elegance corals are quite tough but when you get a healthy one and are able to give it stable parameters and plenty of food, they can be very hardy.

I try to feed mine a few times week, whether that be with AB+, Reef Roids, or pieces of LRS. I've always read that they benefit from frequent feedings, so that's what I do. Though don't try to do this while your coral is ailing.

In the future, if you end up getting another Elegance, you'll definitely want to wait until your tank is very well established(1.5 years or more) and even better, if you're able to setup a small quarantine tank just for the Elegance, that will do wonders. Elegance corals seem to suffer from poor light acclimatization, and often die due to being introduced to a tank with lights that are too intense.

I recently got in a very rare Rasta Elegance, and I've went out of my way to setup 15 Gallon quarantine tank months prior, as to allow the quarantine tank to mature in preparation for this Elegance. You'd want to use live rock, no sand, and just do weekly water changes. I keep a Kessil A80 on the lowest intensity and the Rasta has been looking fantastic the last few weeks since I got it. I plan to keep it in here for 2 months or so, slowly bringing up the lighting intensity in order to get it acclimated to what my display tank will be like.

What a beauty!! I need to do the quarantine tank. I never gave it much thought for freshwater but now I’m seeing that freshwater is baby stuff compared to keeping saltwater tanks. I have a spare 10 gallon I could set up now and get it ready. You know, maybe it was lighting. I was keeping full whites on all day thinking everything needed light for the zooxanthellae feeders. I always see everyone’s tank running blues so maybe it started with too much light.

 

[mdpitts]

Just to be clear, i see no issue waiting either and sepending on person can be great idea. I think it’s more issue for beginners just due to knee jerk reactions and not understanding they go through changes and not always going to be happy. Then thngs like this happen. I think with just more info it can be but this is one needing patience and understanding. So at the same time to contradict myself lol. It isnt due to this lol but with a bit of knowledge can be if tgis was more known.

I am a beginner who can agree with all this and with @Enad - I wish I knew to hold off because I feels like I blundered into some things that more experience would have helped me avoid. I understand live and learn but I’d rather not learn at the expense of a living creature. I’m humbled by all the good advice everyone has given.

 

[Koty]

one thing that I totally forgot although its a (or the) major issue and that is carbon dosing. I use extensive carbon dosing and its less for getting rid of nitrate (which is near 0 in my tank) or phosphate (which is 0.25-0.1 ppm) and more for keeping the tank full of the essential bacteria. I use Tropic Marin products Elimi NP, Amino organics (because nitrates are 0), and ReefActif, as well as KZ sponge power. IME carbon dosing is key to how my tank keeps looking the way it is.

 

[Enad]

I am a beginner who can agree with all this and with @Enad - I wish I knew to hold off because I feels like I blundered into some things that more experience would have helped me avoid. I understand live and learn but I’d rather not learn at the expense of a living creature. I’m humbled by all the good advice everyone has given.

Yep - all you can do is learn. I got an Elegance pretty early on(~3-4 months), my tank had plenty of healthy Euphyllia and other LPS, and while the Elegance looked great for a few weeks, eventually it just started to close up and slowly faded away. I had that happen to 3 other Elegance since then, and only 1 has pulled through.

Keeping a challenging coral like Elegance can be super rewarding though. When you really dig into what the coral needs and how to take care of it properly, it feels really good to find that success.

While you're new, just keep to easy corals as it'll be much less stressful! You have the right mindset, and I'm sure you'll have a lot of success going forward.

 

[mdpitts]

one thing that I totally forgot although its a (or the) major issue and that is carbon dosing. I use extensive carbon dosing and its less for getting rid of nitrate (which is near 0 in my tank) or phosphate (which is 0.25-0.1 ppm) and more for keeping the tank full of the essential bacteria. I use Tropic Marin products Elimi NP, Amino organics (because nitrates are 0), and ReefActif, as well as KZ sponge power. IME carbon dosing is key to how my tank keeps looking the way it is.

Oh awesome. Super good advice. I don't know much about carbon dosing. I'm glad you gave me names of products. I'm gonna go hit the shopping cart. Thanks for this!

 

[mdpitts]

Just a follow up while I'm on here checking some stuff out. My Elegance seems to be getting a tiny bit better. As I was reading up a little more I ran across a couple things that mentioned "brown jelly" which scares the heck out of me. I don't think it has that although I did blow off and remove what I thought was Elegance excrement once or twice. I removed it from the tank right away. No part of the coral is brown or jelly covered.

The other thing that scared me was someone posted a picture (can't remember what coral it was but it had tentacles) that they said had gotten so hungry that it consumed it's own tentacles. To me they just looked withdrawn but it does resemble what my Elegance is doing. I haven't ever been able to get it to eat.

The image is from last night. I had just gently puffed some Oyster Feast at it so it closed a little

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Just a follow up while I'm on here checking some stuff out. My Elegance seems to be getting a tiny bit better. As I was reading up a little more I ran across a couple things that mentioned "brown jelly" which scares the heck out of me. I don't think it has that although I did blow off and remove what I thought was Elegance excrement once or twice. I removed it from the tank right away. No part of the coral is brown or jelly covered.

The other thing that scared me was someone posted a picture (can't remember what coral it was but it had tentacles) that they said had gotten so hungry that it consumed it's own tentacles. To me they just looked withdrawn but it does resemble what my Elegance is doing. I haven't ever been able to get it to eat.

The image is from last night. I had just gently puffed some Oyster Feast at it so it closed a little

looks just like its adjusting phaze or it was severely irritated by something. I have had all tentacles fall off on some in past. They will regrow back with time and care. Try to limit direct feeding to once a week. it also looks inflated currently so its not going to be hungry really. Once oral disk is out and flat for a couple days then you can try a direct feed.. other wise it really doesnt look bad and just need to leave it be for now.

 

[mdpitts]

looks just like its adjusting phaze or it was severely irritated by something. I have had all tentacles fall off on some in past. They will regrow back with time and care. Try to limit direct feeding to once a week. it also looks inflated currently so its not going to be hungry really. Once oral disk is out and flat for a couple days then you can try a direct feed.. other wise it really doesnt look bad and just need to leave it be for now.

Thank you. Good to know about oral disk. I’m trying to stay hands off and I’m doing ok but it’s so hard. I’m a “fixer” and I hate things to suffer but I realize messing with it will do more harm than good.

 

[mdpitts]

Ideally, if you do well with the cheap corals and they get good growth, take them back to your LFS for credit and then get your more expensive difficult pieces using the credit. I gave my LFS some big acro colonies and replaced them with some new acro frags to start growing out again.

Oh cool. I never thought about that. I’m about to post an update. It is recovering nicely right now. I think I’m doing ok with my tank now. I can’t afford wonderful corals right now anyway and I’m religious about weekly water changes. I’m thinking that must be my saving grace.

 

[mdpitts]

I have been wanting to post an update and here it is. My little elegance is recovering nicely. Getting a little color back and tentacles extending a little more every day. I’m so relieved. I REALLY appreciate everyone’s advice. Every time I’ve had an issue I come straight here and do a search and I’ve been able to avoid disaster at least 5 times. Thank you, thank you all!!!

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

I have been wanting to post an update and here it is. My little elegance is recovering nicely. Getting a little color back and tentacles extending a little more every day. I’m so relieved. I REALLY appreciate everyone’s advice. Every time I’ve had an issue I come straight here and do a search and I’ve been able to avoid disaster at least 5 times. Thank you, thank you all!!!

Glad to see it recovering. You did a great job. Is tgose pink tips coning in, or just the camera?

 

[mdpitts]

Thanks Ben for following and being supportive. The pink tips are coming back! Everyday there is a new little improvement. So happy!