Help with my Aussie Elegance Coral

Andrew Schubert

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So I added an Aussie Elegance Coral to my tank a week ago now that I purchased from Austin Aqua Farms. On the first day I'd say it opened about 75% of the way. However, ever since I haven't seen it open any more than say 20%, and close entirely into its skeleton at night.

I have it placed on the sand bed out of the reach of touching any of my rock. I didn't think it was getting too much flow, but I experimented with it anyway by lowering the flow of my Gyres down to just 20% (from 60%). There is also a 'rock wall' nearby that protects it from much flow. So I don't think flow is the issue. It just have a very slight back and forth wave to it (when it's actually out).

I doubt the light is the issue as its at the bottom of the tank. But I'm experimenting with that right now by shading that spot of the tank today. We'll see what it looks like when I get home. But I have 2x AP700 each running at 50% at the moment.

Anyways, I'm starting to wonder if the issue is something with my water parameters, more precisely nitrate levels. My tank is 6 months old now and contains a good selection of fishes (14 in all), that I feed liberally 3x a day. I also add Reef Chili every night. And still I have never seen a trace of nitrate in my system. I tested it just last night again with the NYOS testing kit and absolutely 0 nitrates in the water. API Nitrate test also confirms this. I am running a skimmer and a refugium. So, I'm thinking that maybe my filtration is being too good?

I'd love others thoughts and suggestions. If you think it could be the low nitrate as the issue, anyone have recommendations for raising it to a level the elegance may enjoy better? My other parameters are 450 Calcium, 1300 Mag, and 8 Alk.
 

Oscaror

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Elegance corals seem to be one of those corals that some people seem to struggle with. I know I did :(
I heard indonesian elegance corals are harder than aussie ones, although idk who'd be buying corals from Indonesia right now.
 

Scurvy

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I can only speak to my own experience but found my Elegance to act similar when i bottomed out Nitrate and Phosphate. Was using a Chaeto reactor at the time and eventually lost the coral.

Prior to being low nutrient mine was much happier with long flowing tentacles with measurable N&P. It was actually one of my first corals and did well right up until I measured zero’s.
 

catfishblues

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I've had to move my elegance to different areas to find a sweet spot to open up. I moved it to the lowest flow spot in the tank and it hardly opened but moved it back to a low/moderate flow spot in half shade and it exploded in expansion the next day. This is just my experience cause it sounds like you have good parameters but good luck! #reedsquad
 
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Andrew Schubert

Andrew Schubert

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Just got home from work. This is probably the most its been opened in the past week. Maybe shading the light is helping? I can't believe its too much light though. I'm gonna open up my PS as much as possible to see if I can get any resemblance of Nitrate going in the tank.

My PO4 is also at an undetectable amount (atleast with my API test kit).
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rkpetersen

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First, yours could just be having a nutrient problem, as suggested. However, this tendency of Elegance corals to do poorly has been around for awhile and some people have ascribed it to a bacterial infection, dubbed Elegance Coral Syndrome, as an actual disease agent has never been isolated. I've posted about my experience with this previously in the forum. To be honest, I'm not sure if this alleged 'disease' is a real thing or not. I do know that the last few Elegance I've purchased have been doing great, but I couldn't say what I'm doing differently, other than overall improved tank stability. The ones that are doing great are all of the cut wall coral type typical of high energy reefs, whether in Australian waters or elsewhere. Previously those that died mostly had a conical base. Those come from calmer siltier or muddier waters and are typically described as Indonesian but I suppose they could come from other places; these are the ones implicated with possible bacterial infection. Not to single anyone out unfairly, but although I've bought many great corals there, none of the Elegance corals I previously got from Diver's Den survived in my care. The ones that are doing well came from Cherry Corals and an LFS.
 
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Andrew Schubert

Andrew Schubert

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I just purchased some NEONITRO (Nitrogen Supplement) from BRS. I'm going to try to dose a little of that and see if that helps at all with the elegance. I feel in my gut that this may be the issue. On a side note I do find it confusing what people on reef2reef keep claiming about the Elegance Coral. If you do a search on it you see a LOT of people talking about how hard elegance corals are to keep, and the dreaded syndrome they get. However, in my research via other forums and LFS blogs & videos this issue is only related to the Indo versions. As @rkpetersen stated, it doesn't seem to be an issue with the Aussie versions. In fact, all the info I could find on Aussie Elegance is that they are very hardy and easy to care for.

So the question remains why do we still see so much discussion about these being hard corals and the dreaded syndrome issue? Is people's beliefs about this coral outdated on reef2reef, and they are talking about issues that just do not exist anymore with this coral in the hobby. Or, are authorized reef stores selling us a bunch of hooey in order to get us buying this coral again?

Here are two examples talking about this Aussie version of this coral and how hardy they are.




Anyways, I'll keep everyone updated on the status of the coral once I dose some Nitrate into the tank.
 
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Andrew Schubert

Andrew Schubert

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I was able to dose some nitrate and got it up to 3ppm. So far is still hasn't opened. Hopefully it just needs time. Will keep updated
 

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