Elegance coral tentacles falling off polyp

[jawil99]

I have had the Aussie elegance for 1.5-2 months and it looked phenomenal for over a month. On the last 2-3 weeks it has slowly looked worse and worse. For a period of 1-2 weeks more and more tentacles would shrivel up a lot, looked mucousy, and almost as it they were rotting/decaying. Many tentacles would look like they’re pinching in half, and some would actually detach as I would see them floating around the tank. The elegance also expels a lot of brown substance, I’m thinking either poo or zooxanthellae. Since it looked bad for 1.5-2 weeks I gave it an iodine dip, which made it look way worse, causing healthy looking tentacles to balloon up. The elegance is still alive after three weeks of degrading health, and has shown no tissue recession along the base, and still shows a feeding response. I don’t think this is ECS or brown jelly so I’m guessing it must be light. It’s just strange because it looked so good for awhile. Is it possible for over-exposure to light to take over a month to start having effects on a coral?
Parameters:
Alk- 10.2
Ca- 425
Mg- 1275-1290
No3- 5-10
Po4- .28
Salinity- 1.026

Pictures of elegance before iodine bath

After iodine bath

Current state

I’m new to this so trying understand what all could be affecting the coral can be confusing at times as I don’t know what to look for all the time. I’m not even totally sure light is the issue yet; I figured if light was affecting it in such a negative way, it would have tissue recession and/or bleaching. If anyone has any idea on what is going on, advice would be appreciated.

 

[Uncle99]

This coral can just retract for no apparent reason somewhere between 2-6 months. I find long tenticle plates to do the same thing.

You may be doing nothing at all.

I gave up on these. Shame as it’s a beautiful coral.
Some claim they have them for years.

They show up on the doesn’t so well in captivity list on this site.

 

[jawil99]

This coral can just retract for no apparent reason somewhere between 2-6 months. I find long tenticle plates to do the same thing.

You may be doing nothing at all.

I gave up on these. Shame as it’s a beautiful coral.
Some claim they have them for years.

They show up on the doesn’t so well in captivity list on this site.

Thanks for the response. I guess all I can do is move it to a shaded spot and give it time. It’s frustrating because it looked a lot better before the iodine dip and I’m afraid I might have done more harm than good. The elegance definitely didn’t mind the iodine dip when I originally put it into the tank.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I dont see puffy flesh or typical signs of ECS. Assure it gets adequate light as these are photosynthetic, needing light for cell reproduction and zooxanthellae production which s an energy source for them. Assure adequate flow as too little and tentacles will shrink and coral too will shrink. Too much flow and tentacles can tear off the coral. They need flow for nutrient delivery. I feed mine chopped shrimp and krill and even mysis shrimp.
Here is mine:

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

I have had the Aussie elegance for 1.5-2 months and it looked phenomenal for over a month. On the last 2-3 weeks it has slowly looked worse and worse. For a period of 1-2 weeks more and more tentacles would shrivel up a lot, looked mucousy, and almost as it they were rotting/decaying. Many tentacles would look like they’re pinching in half, and some would actually detach as I would see them floating around the tank. The elegance also expels a lot of brown substance, I’m thinking either poo or zooxanthellae. Since it looked bad for 1.5-2 weeks I gave it an iodine dip, which made it look way worse, causing healthy looking tentacles to balloon up. The elegance is still alive after three weeks of degrading health, and has shown no tissue recession along the base, and still shows a feeding response. I don’t think this is ECS or brown jelly so I’m guessing it must be light. It’s just strange because it looked so good for awhile. Is it possible for over-exposure to light to take over a month to start having effects on a coral?
Parameters:
Alk- 10.2
Ca- 425
Mg- 1275-1290
No3- 5-10
Po4- .28
Salinity- 1.026

Pictures of elegance before iodine bath

After iodine bath

Current state

I’m new to this so trying understand what all could be affecting the coral can be confusing at times as I don’t know what to look for all the time. I’m not even totally sure light is the issue yet; I figured if light was affecting it in such a negative way, it would have tissue recession and/or bleaching. If anyone has any idea on what is going on, advice would be appreciated.

Don't know how to save it but the brown is most likely zooanthelle, my lobo did the same thing when it was bleaching, it died shortly after

 

[jawil99]

I dont see puffy flesh or typical signs of ECS. Assure it gets adequate light as these are photosynthetic, needing light for cell reproduction and zooxanthellae production which s an energy source for them. Assure adequate flow as too little and tentacles will shrink and coral too will shrink. Too much flow and tentacles can tear off the coral. They need flow for nutrient delivery. I feed mine chopped shrimp and krill and even mysis shrimp.
Here is mine:

It gets fed mysis two times per week. Flow seemed good, maybe a little unidirectional at times but swayed nicely in flow

 

[jawil99]

First picture shows a tentacle that just fell off and is dangling by mucous. It’s like the tentacles are literally just melting off

 

[i cant think]

The issue I find with elegance is that due to them being a walling coral, they have 1 head. That 1 head grows and does expand as the coral matures however if part of it gets harmed and starts to die, it slowly all dies back making them harder to recover.

I honestly don’t know how much flow you have to blast them with for them to be unhappy. This is mine under fairly high flow (It’s a shallow 3’ tank with a gyre in at 50% with the highest power).

 

[jawil99]

Just posting an update of the elegance health over the last couple weeks. The elegance is still slowly getting worse. Polyps seem fine but tentacles are continuing to melt and turn into stringy messes. Still no tissue loss along the base of the coral. Really strange stuff