Elegance Coral Shrinking

[MilwaukeeReef]

Hello Reef Central community. I have been in the hobby for about 8 years now with a lot of successes and failures. I currently own a custom 110 gallon cube mixed reef that I started over back in January 2023. I used the existing sand and bacteria balls that I had from my previous setup to jump start the tank. I probably have 25+ fish in the aquarium now (very peaceful community) with a AquaMaxx Protein skimmer (running no refugium). My water has always been tested as undetectable nitrates and I am worried that's why my corals look sad for periods of a time. I recently did a water change and moved my elegance coral (massive colony) over a few inches from it's current spot and ever since I moved it,

the coral is retracted and nearly the entire skeleton is showing. Has anyone else had issues with their water being too clean and

 

[Reefing102]

Very nice tank and welcome to RC! As for the elegance…it is quite possible that it’s low nutrients but also possibly lack of flow…I’m not seeing much extra flow besides your return? I know you can’t blast em with flow but I’m curious if that few inches was just enough to make it too low flow

 

[MilwaukeeReef]

Thanks for the reply @reefing102! I had it in this spot for 2 months and it was the size of a watermelon during those two months. It was just after the water change that it started acting up. I dumped some of the skim mate in the tank from the skimmer to dirty up the water a little. I am hoping this helps.

 

[MilwaukeeReef]

Elegance is starting to open up very slowly. I added skim mate to the water and a capsule of nitrogen to the tank since I have undetectable nitrates.

 

[Reefing102]

Based on the reaction, I would agree it’s likely low nutrients. Perhaps, turning off the skimmer for part of the time may help give a boost? You may see an algae spike though

 

[griss]

Do you feed it? Many years ago, mid 1990’s I kept a very large elegance alive for a long time until I moved and had to give it to a friend.

A couple of things, I had an underpowered skimmer and I also fed the elegance. So, like others have said, it’s likely low nutrients.

If memory serves, these are lagoonal corals that are used to turbid, fairly high nutrient waters.