Elegance Coral theory

[elegance coral]

The Clownfish being hosted by the Elegance never bothered the coral and it showed no ill effects. This only occured for a couple of months and during the whole time the coral was always fully expanded and healthy. The change to the coral is what caused it's demise but it was slow process of tissue recession.

The Elegance that my LFS has is on the top portion of the tank under a 10k 150w DE bulb and very healthy and I'm certain that was properly acclimated.

I really hate to disagree with you especially since this thread has made a turn for the positive.
The pic you posted and the one I posted of the two Elegance corals are not pics of fully expanded and healthy corals. Your coral was showing ill effects. I don't know if it was because of the clown or if it had gone through a rough time and was recovering, or a combination of the two.
I kept an Elegance under bright lights like your LFS myself. It was about 12 inches from a 250W 5500K MH and VHO's. It was a very happy coral.

 

[prow]

Yes you can give neg or pos karma. Just clik on the word karma in a post and you can say you approve or disapprove of the post.
IME negative karma is fairly rare on this site, (except Whiskey who likes the negative. )but you do have the option. It is up to each individual why they give the negative karma.
After re-reading Meandeans post, I think it might have been a mistake but of course it is up to him.

no, its not a mistake his words in the comment confer his intentions. he just did not like the way i posted. not that anything was wrong or missleading, just the way i said it.

 

[mps9506]

Icstorc,
You may be new to this but I believe you are right on target. I don't believe that these protozoans are something new. Many organisums survive in saltwater environments and don't pose much of a problem until the right conditions appear and their numbers explode. At this point they can pose a threat to animals that otherwise seem healthy. The key to preventing these outbreaks would be to find out what triggers them in the first place. Once you have determined what the trigger is you can take the necessary steps to prevent this from becomming a problem in the first place. I believe this is exactly what these Elegance corals are going through.

Do you think the elegance corals you acquired actually had the hypothetical protozoans or were simply stressed/bleached from the collecting/shipping process?
The reason I ask is I think it is totally plausible that you could have received otherwise healthy specimens, and other specimens people have acquired are infected, or at least infected to the point they can't be saved.

I honestly think that there needs to be a focus on the collection/shipping/wholesale side of the industry to ensure these corals are getting through to the hobbyist in good shape. Not bleached/burned torn etc.

 

[lcstorc]

no, its not a mistake his words in the comment confer his intentions. he just did not like the way i posted. not that anything was wrong or missleading, just the way i said it.

Wow you were fast. I edited my post already. I wasn't paying enough attention and thought Elegance got the neg karma. Reading Deans post I didn't understand since his post seemed to agree with Elegance.

 

[sasquatch]

From my very limited knowledge this is starting to sound like a cascade effect, like domino's falling, what comes first the chicken or the egg?

 

[cheeks69]

What in this photo indicates to you that it's showing ill effects ? I can assure you that this was a healthy coral and was doing very well for just over a year in my tank. It was always fully expanded no swelling or recession of tissue. I have seen photos and live "sick" Elegance corals and none of the typical symptoms were noticeable in this coral.

 

[cheeks69]

If anyone is interested this is what Eric mentioned about his research the last time we spoke thru the internet:

aquariofilia marinha - REEFFORUM

 

[elegance coral]

Do you think the elegance corals you acquired actually had the hypothetical protozoans or were simply stressed/bleached from the collecting/shipping process?
The reason I ask is I think it is totally plausible that you could have received otherwise healthy specimens, and other specimens people have acquired are infected, or at least infected to the point they can't be saved.

I honestly think that there needs to be a focus on the collection/shipping/wholesale side of the industry to ensure these corals are getting through to the hobbyist in good shape. Not bleached/burned torn etc.

The corals I recieved had problems. I personally have not seen these protozoans, so I can't say if my corals had them or not. All 11 Elegance corals I bought have had simular problems. I have seen many pics of other peoples corals that show the same symptoms as mine, and talked to many more that described these symptoms. I can only assume these are the same problems everyone else is having with their corals. We are all having the same problems, so my corals must be suffering from the same ailment. If a coral can be placed in the correct environment before it bleaches, or shows signs of an infection, or starts retracting all the way back into its skeleton its odds are pretty good.
I totally agree that they should experament with the collection/shipping/wholesale side of things. I would like to have an Elegance that was collected at say 35ft and placed in a rubbermaid container at that depth and shielded from the bright light of the south pacific. Packaged indoors, and shipped without exposure to bright light. My bet would be that this coral would be perfectly healthy.

 

[elegance coral]

If anyone is interested this is what Eric mentioned about his research the last time we spoke thru the internet:

aquariofilia marinha - REEFFORUM

It's not in English. Can you tell us what it said?

 

[cheeks69]

The conversation was in English.

 

[mps9506]

From reeffforum.net, Eric Borneman posted:

will be writing an article on Catalaphyllia soon and what I have found from the histology. It appears to me that there are three things going on - a possible fungal filament that allows penetration/entrance of bacteria. Small red aggregates - probably bacteria - that look like they are causing severe cellular granulation, especially to the nematocysts (hence why sick corals don't feed well); and a green rod that appears to be invading the zooxanthellae. I am waiting to confer with other coral pathologists before making these conclusions.

There is much more posted in the thread, but I think at this point we won't get much until he has finished working with coral pathologists and writes up the paper.

I would not be surprised if what elegance_coral has treated in elegance corals and what Eric is investigating could very well be different things.
I also wouldn't be surprised if the steps elegance coral has posted regarding the care for newly imported elegance corals is the only method for treating corals possibly infected with the possible pathogen (enough possibilities?)
I think treating a coral for a pathogen would be very difficult considering getting medication actually into a coral would be impractical. We would have to start off with the healthiest possible specimens and go from there.

I am assuming Eric will probably be doing histological comparisons of specimens from both the wild (that have not gone through the collection/wholesale channels) and those in captivity to determine what normal levels of this pathogen are in the wild.

 

[elegance coral]

What in this photo indicates to you that it's showing ill effects ? I can assure you that this was a healthy coral and was doing very well for just over a year in my tank. It was always fully expanded no swelling or recession of tissue. I have seen photos and live "sick" Elegance corals and none of the typical symptoms were noticeable in this coral.

This is a bad pic of a healthy well expanded Elegance coral. There is a big difference between this coral and the two corals we posted pics of. I wasn't trying to say that your coral was on deaths door and surely didn't want to offend you. It just had a ways to go before I would call it well expanded and healthy. The polup is small for its skeleton and the tentacles are retracted. Given time and the proper care that coral could have become a very large Elegance with long flowing tentacles.

 

[Dentoid]

The corals I recieved had problems. I personally have not seen these protozoans, so I can't say if my corals had them or not.

I don't want to get in the middle of this discussion because I don't enough about this coral, but I did hear a lecture by Julian Sprung and I remember him saying the only way to see these protozoans is with a stereo microscope. Apparently they can not be seen with the naked eye.

 

[elegance coral]

From reeffforum.net, Eric Borneman posted:


There is much more posted in the thread, but I think at this point we won't get much until he has finished working with coral pathologists and writes up the paper.

I would not be surprised if what elegance_coral has treated in elegance corals and what Eric is investigating could very well be different things.
I also wouldn't be surprised if the steps elegance coral has posted regarding the care for newly imported elegance corals is the only method for treating corals possibly infected with the possible pathogen (enough possibilities?)
I think treating a coral for a pathogen would be very difficult considering getting medication actually into a coral would be impractical. We would have to start off with the healthiest possible specimens and go from there.

I am assuming Eric will probably be doing histological comparisons of specimens from both the wild (that have not gone through the collection/wholesale channels) and those in captivity to determine what normal levels of this pathogen are in the wild.

If Eric is correct about the green rods invading the corals algae, this could help (at least in part) explain why these corals are having a hard time adapting to different lighting.

 

[mps9506]

If Eric is correct about the green rods invading the corals algae, this could help (at least in part) explain why these corals are having a hard time adapting to different lighting.

And definetaly explain the abundance of bleached corals coming in from wholesalers. The fungal filament is very interesting. as well. I can't wait to see the published findings. I think we will see a combination of many factors as opposed to one single explanation as the reasoning for the decline of elegance coral health in the hobby.
Maybe we can get to the point we can propagate these guys so they don't have to be imported.

 

[lcstorc]

Just to show you how funny life can be.
I mentioned earlier that I had never seen one iof these corals at my lfs. Well a new LFS just opened and I went to check it out. What did they have? Of course, an elegance coral. It was by far the coral in the worst shape of any he had. Everything else in fact looked quite healthy. He did also have very a very well lit display but I have no idea how long he had the coral or what it looked like when he got it but it did not look good. I was smart for once and didn't buy it. Partially because I doubt myself but partly because it already looked ill.

 

[cheeks69]

There is a big difference between this coral and the two corals we posted pics of. I wasn't trying to say that your coral was on deaths door and surely didn't want to offend you. It just had a ways to go before I would call it well expanded and healthy. The polup is small for its skeleton and the tentacles are retracted. Given time and the proper care that coral could have become a very large Elegance with long flowing tentacles.

I'm not easily offended so don't worry about that. AFA the Elegance there are many variations of this coral and mine was still small. The photo you see is full expansion of the coral although the tentacles are quite small but certainly no indication of disease , recession or decline but hey it's just my opinion based on my observation/experience.

 

[elegance coral]

And definetaly explain the abundance of bleached corals coming in from wholesalers. The fungal filament is very interesting. as well. I can't wait to see the published findings. I think we will see a combination of many factors as opposed to one single explanation as the reasoning for the decline of elegance coral health in the hobby.
Maybe we can get to the point we can propagate these guys so they don't have to be imported.

I can't prove this, but I still believe the problem that starts this off is the corals being exposed to bright sunlight as they are being collected. By the time they reach the wholesalers holding tanks they are allready stressed and burnt. We all get hitch hickers in our tanks. Can you imagine what must be swimming around in these wholesalers tanks? There could be many organisums in these tanks that would take advantage of these corals in their weakened state. Most other corals make it through these tanks unharmed. There must be something that sets these Elegance corals apart from the rest. I believe it is the damage from the strong uv light of the south pacific.
Even after all this I still believe we can keep many, if not most, of these corals alive if they get to us in time and we give them what they need to survive.

 

[elegance coral]

I'm not easily offended so don't worry about that. AFA the Elegance there are many variations of this coral and mine was still small. The photo you see is full expansion of the coral although the tentacles are quite small but certainly no indication of disease , recession or decline but hey it's just my opinion based on my observation/experience.

I agree that there is no indication of disease, recession, or decline. I said that your coral could have grown into a very healthy Elegance. The coral looked like it had gone through a rough time at one point. I don't know if this was before you got it or in the early days when you had it. I believe that the pic did show its full expansion for the state of recovery it was in. It was well out of the woods and on its way to full recovery.
The coral that I posted a pic of that looked very much like yours was burnt bad at one point. It would retract completely back into its skeleton. Its tissue recieded from the edges of its skeleton. It was touch and go for quite some time. Eventually it began to expand again, but had no noticeable tentacles. Tentacles slowly began to appear and grow. In the pic the tentacles are less than 1/2 of an inch. Now they are about 5/8 of an inch. In time they will be between 1 and 2 inches long. This will take time but he'll get there.
There are slight variations from one Elegance to another, however, there are no normal healthy Elegance corals with small polups and small tentacles like yours and mine. There are people that disagree with me on this. There are even people that place corals like these into a different species. They are wrong and this theory has grown in popularity because of online dealers passing these corals and others off as healthy corals, and useing this other species as an explanation for the corals appearance. There is but one family Catalaphyllia and one member of that family Jardinei. People should not buy Elegance corals under any other name.

 

[elegance coral]

The conversation was in English.

There must be something wrong with my PC or something because every time I pull it up it is in some other language.