Calling all elegance coral experts!

[carriej]

It shriveled up pretty tight last night when the lights went out, and I took a flashlight and didn't see anything but that doesn't mean something isn't there.

I'm stressed! LOL

I hate to take it out; because I hate to touch it period. It shrivels up to NOTHING at night; and opens up everyday... My lights are about to turn on for the day so I'm heading down to the basement to check it out now...

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by carriej

It shriveled up pretty tight last night when the lights went out, and I took a flashlight and didn't see anything but that doesn't mean something isn't there.

I'm stressed! LOL

I hate to take it out; because I hate to touch it period. It shrivels up to NOTHING at night; and opens up everyday... My lights are about to turn on for the day so I'm heading down to the basement to check it out now...

Having them shrink at night is normal , what your looking for is seperation where the flesh meets skeleton or any milky strings or mucas.

[carriej]

Nothing stringy and no mucus... I posted on a few forums and some say its doomed and some say its fine... Guess I will have to wait and see what happens

[carriej]

Looks worse today. Any advice? Should I try doing an iodine dip?

[marie]

I tried iodine dips on my first one but it didn't work. My second faired a bit better with melafix and pimafix dips
The journal of it
http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic110834.aspx

It lasted about a year in that same condition before dieing......in part because I couldn't keep the peppermint shrimp from stealing all it's food when the lights were out

[asylumdown]

Oh no! just when we thought we were in the clear!

FWIW I didn't start seeing the stringy mucous crap until the tentacles were totally stunted/melted off.

[Bill]

Same thing happened to mine. It was well on it's way out so as a last resort here's what I did:

1. Get a shallow 10gallon container. I used the blue tupperware type from canadian tire.
2. Fill with 5 gallon fresh saltwater same temperature, salinity and pH as tank.
3. Place a small pump in the corner of the container. Water movement was circular and strong enough to circulate around the container but not so strong as to move the coral around. (I used a small pump from a big mombosa skimmer)
4. Place coral inside container and move to semi open window with indirect sunlight. This was during summer and NO heater in the container.

I read that the corals may have been harvested from deeper (darker/cooler) ocean and need to get acclimated to our warmer brighter tanks. I had nothing to loose when I tried this and I noticed improvement within a day. Over about 1 week, Coral continued to improve and expanded in the container. Temperature was about 65F. I lowered the temperature of my main tank to as low as I felt safe and raised the container temperature to match. When ready, I moved the elegance to the main tank under a cave (no direct light). Coral expanded almost instantly. I was able to slowly move it to direct light and raise temperature over a couple weeks. If this is a disease, the lower temperature / less light may be enough to eradicate.

Keep salinity constant and replace evaporation with ro/di water. No food was given and the white stringy stuff disapeared almost overnight. Strange, I also had a white crab that I speared with a toothpick.

Hope this helps.