Elegance coral

Problem with an Elegance coral?

Posting here about an elegance that's soon to be mine (m'kay, now, maybe not so soon...) from a mate.

Today, it's started excreting "light brown stringy stuff" from more than one of it's mouths, and has also closed up a little bit, but not too much. It looks a lot like mucus, and once a large strand is formed, it breaks off into the water and up the filter.

What's your diagnosis - sorry, I don't have any pictures to hand. Just excrement, or expelling zooxanthellae due to stress? It's under 150W MH, but they're still in the acclimating process, so are quite a way above the water surface.

Here are the last set of the tank's perameters (I assume within the last day or so):
pH - 8.2
Alkalinity - 2.2
Ammonia - 0.0132 ppm
Nitrite - 0.1 to untracable ppm
Nitrate - 5ppm
Calcium - 420 ppm
Temp - 26 degrees
Salinity - 1.024

 

alkalinity 2.2, temp 26 degrees?

 

The 26 degrees, I assume, is Celcius. But the alkalinity at 2.2 - not sure what that means. Even if that is in mEq/L it is pretty low.

 

I missed off that. It's "milli equaivalents per liter", I assume that's mEq/L. What can be done to sort that?

And yeah, temp is 26 degrees C.

 

Is adding RedSea's Buff a good idea?

Need to tell him the next step...

 

It could be anyone of the two, but without pics hard to tell for sure. One thing that I have learned about elegance corals is that they don't do well in home aquriums. Had a friend who had one only to lose it some months later.

 

Also what type of lighting is it under? MH,T-5, PC,VHO

 

May think twice about taking it off his hands then (;

It's been in his tank for 3+ months with no problems, if that helps.

 

150W Metal Halides.

 

Ok, so your alkalinity is low. This may not be contributing to the elegance coral's problems, but it is something that can be dealt with. You can add some carbonate buffer to your tank. Some people use baking soda, others use chemicals they buy from their LFS. Either way, shoot for 4-5mEq/L.