Elegance coral not doing well

toekietoekie · Apr 28, 2026

Hello all,

I bought an elegance coral a little over a month ago. It did amazing at first but has been declining the last 2 weeks. In the beginning it extended beautifully and reacted to food very well. Now that I look back at it the first odd thing was he dropped the food I gave him, where previously he ate it very quickly.

Before the dip, retracted flesh and mesenterial filaments showing.

2 Days after the dip. No filaments or slime anymore, just very swollen on one side.

Now he's looking very retracted with almost no flesh or tentacles showing. On one side of him there were messenterial filaments showing. I gave him a freshwater dip since I read that could help and he is looking a little bit better now. The day after the dip he was producing a lot of slime but that has gone now. At the moment the mesenterial filaments are gone but that side of the coral is looking swollen.

I don't know if it came from indonesia or australia. Water parameters are fine (see below, only mag is a bit low). Other corals are doing fine and growing.

Is there anything else I could do or should I just wait? Possible for him to pull trough?

Params:
No3: 11,2
Po4: 0,06
Ca: 420
Mg: 1180
Kh: 10
Ph: 8,5

Apologies for the bad English

davidm777 · Apr 28, 2026

I am curious on the help you get from the community.
In the meantime, what were you feeding it and how often?

BryanM · Apr 28, 2026

mag is a little low, but doubtful its the issue.

I do know my elegances closed up tight often, but always inflated well.

Any idea what iodine or manganese levels are? These are beneficial trace elements (or do you do regular water changes?)

toekietoekie · Apr 28, 2026

davidm777 said:
I am curious on the help you get from the community.
In the meantime, what were you feeding it and how often?

same here, really hoping someone can help me save it since it was a beautifull coral and quite expensive.
I tried feeding it a chopped up silverfish once a week, but I saw him catching food from the water as well when I fed the fish.

BryanM said:
mag is a little low, but doubtful its the issue.

I do know my elegances closed up tight often, but always inflated well.

Any idea what iodine or manganese levels are? These are beneficial trace elements (or do you do regular water changes?)

Yeah I wouldn't be as worried if he was just deflating, it's the fact that he looked wounded/infected that worries me the most.

I'm going to be honest, I haven't done a water change in a long time, a few months at least. I am building an auto water change system in the basement since manual water changes were a 2 day affair with the size of the tank.

My last ICP test was a long time ago (august 2025) but iodine was 0,0378mg/l, manganese was 0,2 µg/l

BryanM · Apr 28, 2026

toekietoekie said:
same here, really hoping someone can help me save it since it was a beautifull coral and quite expensive.
I tried feeding it a chopped up silverfish once a week, but I saw him catching food from the water as well when I fed the fish.

Yeah I wouldn't be as worried if he was just deflating, it's the fact that he looked wounded/infected that worries me the most.

I'm going to be honest, I haven't done a water change in a long time, a few months at least. I am building an auto water change system in the basement since manual water changes were a 2 day affair with the size of the tank.

My last ICP test was a long time ago (august 2025) but iodine was 0,0378mg/l, manganese was 0,2 µg/l

Honest is cool, in lieu of testing you probably would be wise to do a semi large wc asap and hope the elegance improves

Ben's Pico Reefing · Apr 28, 2026

They do this time to time when adjusting to new tank. Let it be and dont feed directly. Make sure its not shaded which it doesnt look like and nice easy flow.

Water changes and cleaning wont hurt but might help if maintenance is behind. Great indicators of water issues

I lost one recently but I was trying to recover from already recessed and rtn. One I ha e now had for a couple years. Went through this a couple times with tank changes.

cweimer1 · May 2, 2026

In my opinion that looks like a cone bottom elegance, those tend to die off after a few months in my opinion. I have a flat bottom and elegance now for 3 years with no issues, it looks like that cone was cut half way to be put on a plug. Hope this helps!