Elegance coral - correct placment in tank

[bailey7424]

I have an elegance coral which has done well over four weeks, but now appears to be dying.

I have had the elegance coral in three different places in my tank. My understanding is that this coral should be in semi-still waters, low to medium light intensity, in the substrate, away from other stinging-celled animals.

The thing I don't quite understand - the elegance coral should be placed in a horizontal orientation, point down, mouths and tentacles upward. What is meant by horizontal versus vertical orientation in this case? Should the coral be looking up to the canopy or should it be looking out to the front of the aquarium?

I had the elegance coral in the substrate originally looking up to the canopy - it seemed to do fine. I moved the coral to the top part of my tank and placed it so it looked out to the front of the tank - it still seemed to be doing fine - when I read that this coral should be in the substrate away from stronger currents, I moved it back to the substrate, but placed it so it looked up to the canopy.

Of course, there could be other reasons why this coral doesn't look good now. I'm willing to listen to any suggestions, but would like your opinion about what is horizontal and what is vertical when it comes to elegance coral placment in a tank!

[Willow]

from what ive read elegance has a horrible track record in captivity and probably should be avoided. ive also read that it likes lower flow and sitting in the substrate. have you tried feeding it?

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I've got to admit I finally broke down & tried the elegance a while ago. No luck. It looked awesome for a while but when it went downhill, it went very quickly (matter of days). I had it in my seahorse tank with high nutrients, low flow, low-med. light & target feeding, sitting on my sandbed away from other corals with macro floating around it. About as close to the recommended habitat as I could reproduce. The old elegance seem fine but these new ones should be left in the wild.

JME

Anthony

Gave it my best shot, so no more elegance for this reefer

[danny zubot]

I've had corals die on me from moving them around too often. This is a tough coral to care for, it needs to be put in the place where it will do well, and left alone. It's track record has kept me away it.

[bailey7424]

Thanks for your feedback to date, everyone.

No, I didn't try feeding the elegance directly. I do use DT's, Marine Snow and ZoPlan in the tank, but that is it.

I did notice, when I changed the position of the coral from facing up to facing out to the front of the tank ( in my quest to figure out what is vertical and what is horizontal) that a portion of the coral at the back had been fairly chewed ... there was a crab attached doing its handy work. This could explain the bloated fleshy areas of the coral and the retracted tentacles, I suppose.