Elegance Corals Issue

[astronomymagician]

My Elegance Coral is normally spread out, but its mouthparts are tightly closed. When I feed it with cut shrimp meat around its mouth, its tentacles rapidly catch the meat, but its mouth never opens to eat. Eventually, the shrimp meat floats away. What could be the cause of this problem?

 

[griss]

My Elegance Coral is normally spread out, but its mouthparts are tightly closed. When I feed it with cut shrimp meat around its mouth, its tentacles rapidly catch the meat, but its mouth never opens to eat. Eventually, the shrimp meat floats away. What could be the cause of this problem?

It's been decades since I kept an Elegance coral. Did the coral used to eat the shrimp? Could the piece of shrimp be too big? Elegance corals like small/finely chopped foods or foods like mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, etc.

 

[Uncle99]

My Elegance Coral is normally spread out, but its mouthparts are tightly closed. When I feed it with cut shrimp meat around its mouth, its tentacles rapidly catch the meat, but its mouth never opens to eat. Eventually, the shrimp meat floats away. What could be the cause of this problem?

The elegance coral is one of a few that have a bad long term track record.

While some people report years of success, many find after 3-6 months of great health, it just goes down hill.
Many believe this is an issue of the Indonesian ones versus the Australian ones that seem at least, to fair better.

They don’t require regular feedings and if he’s not taking, it may be a sign of some stress specific to this coral if no one else is affected.

If you have any shrimps, they can damage mouths when they scavenge, so if you have shrimps, they might have made it unhappy. Again, very little the reefer can do.

Long tentacle plates behave exactly the same way, your lucky to get 6-9 months before dying in a week, when everyone else is happy

 

[astronomymagician]

It's been decades since I kept an Elegance coral. Did the coral used to eat the shrimp? Could the piece of shrimp be too big? Elegance corals like small/finely chopped foods or foods like mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, etc.

I'm not sure if Coral has actually eaten the shrimp meat before. Usually, the shrimp meat I cut is half a centimeter in size. Next time, I'll try to change mysis shrimp instead.

 

[astronomymagician]

The elegance coral is one of a few that have a bad long term track record.

While some people report years of success, many find after 3-6 months of great health, it just goes down hill.
Many believe this is an issue of the Indonesian ones versus the Australian ones that seem at least, to fair better.

They don’t require regular feedings and if he’s not taking, it may be a sign of some stress specific to this coral if no one else is affected.

If you have any shrimps, they can damage mouths when they scavenge, so if you have shrimps, they might have made it unhappy. Again, very little the reefer can do.

Long tentacle plates behave exactly the same way, your lucky to get 6-9 months before dying in a week, when everyone else is happy

Got 2 questions: 1.why the shrimps can damage the mouths? 2. Can soaking in amino acids promote growth?

 

[griss]

I'm not sure if Coral has actually eaten the shrimp meat before. Usually, the shrimp meat I cut is half a centimeter in size. Next time, I'll try to change mysis shrimp instead.

They don’t like larger prey so frozen Mysis would be a good diet. As @Uncle99 mentioned they don’t need feeding all that often.

Also, what he was taking about the shrimp is live shrimp like Peppermint shrimp or Cleaner shrimp will try to steal food from the coral and can irritate its mouth.

 

[astronomymagician]

They don’t like larger prey so frozen Mysis would be a good diet. As @Uncle99 mentioned they don’t need feeding all that often.

Also, what he was taking about the shrimp is live shrimp like Peppermint shrimp or Cleaner shrimp will try to steal food from the coral and can irritate its mouth.

I see, thank you.