Elegance Coral theory

[lcstorc]

Sorry to see you go.
We do have some spirited debates on RS but that is all they are spirited debates and should not be taken as insults.
We are all here for the same reason. We love the animals of the sea and want to learn how to best care for them.
Your theory is interresting and I would love to hear more as you continue to keep these beautiful animals.
We may never know what has been harming them, but it does seem as if stronger light is not good for them. Whether it is the cause of all the problems is a question, but regardless people have something to try if their coral looks unhappy.
Since there would be no way to treat for the possible disease, moving them to lower the light would certainly be worth a try IMO if the coral is displaying signs of damage.

 

[elegance coral]

Okay, it has been mentioned that more research needs to be done on this subject. I agree, but by whom? I don't see scientists lining up to take a crack at this. I don't believe it is enough to tell people not to buy them because they don't do well in captivity. People have been saying that for many years about many of the animals we keep and yet people still buy them and they are still being collected. With many of these animals it has been the hobbyist that have made great strides in the care of these animals. Through hobbyist sharing their experiances with these animals we have become much better at caring for them. It has been said that people reading what I have written may go out and buy an Elegance coral With the hopes of keeping it alive. I hope they do. I would rather a hobbyist buy the coral and make an effort to keep it alive than to allow it to die in the LFS. How many Goniapora have you seen melt away in your LFS only to come back a week later and there are 3 new ones to take its place? The reality is that they are not going to stop collecting Elegance corals just because you or I say they should. So, we can't expect the scientist to fix this problem for us. We can't expect the collecters to stop collecting them. The only thing we can do is to learn how to care for them. This is all I am trying to do.


It has been mentioned more than once that these corals do not show these symptoms in the wild. This is what I would expect. These corals have spent most of their lives adapting to the environment they are in. They don't run into problems until someone removes them from that environment.

It has been said that all I have learned over the past year and a half is basic LPS care. This is far from the truth. In LPS corals like open brains we can see that they will expand greatly when the light is insufficient. The reaction is completely opposite in Elegance corals. I could see where even an experiances hobbyist would get these signs mixed up. When I first witnessed this behavior in these corals, I had never heard of this before. After posting what I had seen an expert (at least that is what I would call him) on Goniapora told me of a simular symptom with these corals.

I keep reading about this whole skin thickness thing. I posted it in a theory, I stated that I could not prove it, and I have never made an attempt to present this as fact. The point of me bringing it up in the first place is to inform people that they can be damaged far easier than corals like brains, Euphyllia species, and the Elegance corals of old. I'm not sure why this is. All I can do is guess and I have made that clear.

I am here to give this another shot because I don't think its fair to judge the whole sight on the comments of a few, and because of some of the nice comments of some others. Hopefully we can turn this into an educational experance for all of us.

 

[lcstorc]

I'm all about learning to care for the animals we keep.
One thing to keep in mind though is if we band together we can make a difference on what is collected by voting with our wallets. This is something I do in many parts of my life. If the LFS has them and they keep dying without being purchased they will eventually stop buying them. If the LFS are not buying them than the collectors will stop collecting them.
I'm not saying that should be done in this case because I know nothing about this coral except what I have read in this thread and the one on RC which have convinced me that I do not have enough experience at this point to try one in my reef.
It is great that you have had success keeping these corals and great that you are sharing your experiences.
Read the Bluespot thread and you will see another project we have going here where we are trying to determine why these guys are so hard to keep. It is certainly not a scientific study but a group of people who love the animals who are sharing their experinces.

 

[elegance coral]

How do I find the blue spot thread?

 

[sasquatch]

Darrell, for those others like me (Ha ha) who have never seen an Elegance coral heres a pic, its probably wrong and feel free to post your own, so? whats the next step? are you dosing anything as a supplement or vitamin? Steve

 

[cheeks69]

This is what my Elegance looked like in it's hey day, as a matter of fact my B&W Ocellaris was being hosted by it for a period of time. It was on the upper half of the tank under 130w of PC's.

This is a photo of what it looked like towards the end and you can see the tissue recession, this was a slow process and never did it show any swelling or retraction of the tentacles. In this photo it's under 250 12k coralvue bulb in the lower area of the tank.

 

[cheeks69]

This is far from the truth. In LPS corals like open brains we can see that they will expand greatly when the light is insufficient. The reaction is completely opposite in Elegance corals. I could see where even an experiances hobbyist would get these signs mixed up. When I first witnessed this behavior in these corals, I had never heard of this before. After posting what I had seen an expert (at least that is what I would call him) on Goniapora told me of a simular symptom with these corals.

My experience with Trachyphyllias/Wellsophyllias has been that under intense light especially if they haven't been properly acclimated they will bleach and have tissue recession. I have to keep mine shaded for them to expand properly and maintain their intense color. Again as I've mentioned before these corals come from turbid lagoons similar to Elegance corals and need to be properly fed and acclimated. The "Elegance coral disease" is a completely diferent situation and the one's that I've seen infected have NEVER recovered. I spoke to a friend who owns an LFS and he mentioned to me that when he started getting shipments of these corals that were sick he tried to place them in his show tanks which contained healthy Elegance corals that he kept for years and they ALL died. He now only has one left that was kept in a hobbiests tank for a couple of years and then moved to his show tank and has been there for almost 6 years, it's enormous really the most beautiful Elegance I've ever seen.

 

[mps9506]

I don't believe it is enough to tell people not to buy them because they don't do well in captivity. People have been saying that for many years about many of the animals we keep and yet people still buy them and they are still being collected. With many of these animals it has been the hobbyist that have made great strides in the care of these animals. Through hobbyist sharing their experiances with these animals we have become much better at caring for them.

Yes we must rely on the hobbyist to advance the hobby. But it is also important to encourage people to keep specimens that will stay alive to minimize this hobby's impact on the reefs. Leave the difficult to keep stuff to the advanced hobbyist (whatever that term means )

I would rather a hobbyist buy the coral and make an effort to keep it alive than to allow it to die in the LFS. How many Goniapora have you seen melt away in your LFS only to come back a week later and there are 3 new ones to take its place? The reality is that they are not going to stop collecting Elegance corals just because you or I say they should. So, we can't expect the scientist to fix this problem for us. We can't expect the collecters to stop collecting them.

Unfortunately this is true. We have difficulty as hobbyists controlling what collectors actually collect and what wholesaler get in. However that being said, I think as hobbyists we do have major influence over what stores actually get in. Because in the end it is in their interest to get in what sells. And it does work down the line. Wholesalers get in what the stores want, shippers get from collectors what the wholesalers want etc... That is why you don't see stores carrying dendros and gonis in the same amounts they used to (at least the stores in my part of the country). Unfortunately from what I understand dendros are still the most collected coral. I'm not sure where they are getting shipped to as I personally rarely see them in stores.

I still want to see a study showing where elegances corals are currently being collected versus where they used to be collected and more detailed facts on water quality and light quality they get in the wild. I think that showing quantitative differences in water and light quality for areas that elegance corals used to be collected in versus areas they are collected in now would give us important information to determine why these guys are so hard to keep now.

My other question is, if the elegance corals collected 10-15 years ago in the hobby were so hardy, why do I not see many of these around?

 

[elegance coral]

Darrell, for those others like me (Ha ha) who have never seen an Elegance coral heres a pic, its probably wrong and feel free to post your own, so? whats the next step? are you dosing anything as a supplement or vitamin? Steve

I hope the next step is for us to discuss the problems we are having with these corals and what we can do to better care for them. I know we will never be able to save all the Elegance corals comming into the hobby, but if we could shift the odds in the corals favor we would have accomplished something worthwhile.
The only thing I have dosed is iodine, and I only dosed this when I had an infected coral or thought there was a chance of one of my corals becomming infected. Most of my corals are just now getting back to the point where they will eat. I plan on soaking their food in vitamins, but I haven't started this yet.

 

[elegance coral]

This is what my Elegance looked like in it's hey day, as a matter of fact my B&W Ocellaris was being hosted by it for a period of time. It was on the upper half of the tank under 130w of PC's.

This is a photo of what it looked like towards the end and you can see the tissue recession, this was a slow process and never did it show any swelling or retraction of the tentacles. In this photo it's under 250 12k coralvue bulb in the lower area of the tank.

This is a pic of one of my corals that looks very much like yours in its hey day.

This is a pic (sorry about the quality, ist a cell phone pic) of the same coral. You can see how the tentacles are getting a little longer in this pic.
I am sorry to hear about your coral. In my opinion your coral, like mine, had been burnt at one point. In the first pic your coral was well on its way to recovery. Any of the environmental changes, or a combanation of them, could have caused its downfall. Bright light, high flow, no food. If the coral would have stayed where is was, and you could have kept the clown fish off of him, he most likely would have servived. I'm not supprised that it didn't show the puffed up symptom. It had spent time in your tank acclimating to the lights of you aquarium. They may not have been all that bright, but they were probably brighter than the light it recieved in the wild. The jump from these lights to the bright light of the second aquarium is not as large a leap as it would be from the wild to the lights of the second tank.

 

[elegance coral]

My experience with Trachyphyllias/Wellsophyllias has been that under intense light especially if they haven't been properly acclimated they will bleach and have tissue recession. I have to keep mine shaded for them to expand properly and maintain their intense color. Again as I've mentioned before these corals come from turbid lagoons similar to Elegance corals and need to be properly fed and acclimated. The "Elegance coral disease" is a completely diferent situation and the one's that I've seen infected have NEVER recovered. I spoke to a friend who owns an LFS and he mentioned to me that when he started getting shipments of these corals that were sick he tried to place them in his show tanks which contained healthy Elegance corals that he kept for years and they ALL died. He now only has one left that was kept in a hobbiests tank for a couple of years and then moved to his show tank and has been there for almost 6 years, it's enormous really the most beautiful Elegance I've ever seen.

I have 8 Elegance corals that are all recovering. They are all in different stages of this problem, but all getting better. This does not have to be a death sentance for these corals. I'm not saying that there aren't those individuals that make it to our LFS in such bad shape that they are beyond help. If you know what to look for and see an Elegance in the LFS that is remotely healthy they can be brought back. Any time you have a coral that becomes ill and comes down with an infection it can be spread to other corals in the same system. It can even jump from one species to another. I believe that after an Elegance becomes burnt it can be weakend to the point that it is more prone to these infections, or these protozoans that have been found in dead and dieing coral tissue. This can be avoided if proper care is given. The problem for us is knowing what the different symptoms are and what steps we should take in these different situations.

 

[elegance coral]

Yes we must rely on the hobbyist to advance the hobby. But it is also important to encourage people to keep specimens that will stay alive to minimize this hobby's impact on the reefs. Leave the difficult to keep stuff to the advanced hobbyist (whatever that term means )

I agree 110%. After rereading what I wrote I can see where someone could take it as I am telling everyone to run out and buy an Elegance coral. This was not my intention. If these were easy to care for we would not be having this conversation. If you don't have the experience and aren't willing to put in the time and effort it takes to keep one of these corals alive and healthy you should avoid them.

My other question is, if the elegance corals collected 10-15 years ago in the hobby were so hardy, why do I not see many of these around?

I think this is our fault. We don't see many 10 to 15 year old aquariums around. My old Elegance I posted a pic of was given away to keep an X wife from getting it in the divorce. She would have mailed me the dead skeleton just because she knew how much it ment to me. I lost track of the person I gave it to and I would be shocked if it were still alive today.

 

[mps9506]

The reason I ask about why we don't see many of the "old elegance" corals in the hobby is because I don't know if we have a baseline for how long these species live, in captivity or the wild. I know most hermatypic corals can live for decades or centuries if they aren't overgrown or out competed or eaten, but for a species that has evolved to live away from major reef structure we don't have much info on.

 

[meandean45]

Hi Darrell!

I'm glad to see that the self appointed "Experts" didn't manage to drive you away from the rest of us !
"Elegance Disease" is itself a "Theory"! Did I miss something, or has someone out there somehow proved its' cause? For all of the "Experts" theories, I've yet to see one proved yet. This being said, any number of theories can be put forward, discussed, etc., etc., But until someone can show a scientific fact for the cause, NONE of them can be totally ruled out.

I'm glad to hear that you're still here to help those who choose to make an attempt to keep these lovely corals. As I said in my first post. I've never attempted to keep an Elegance before, but it has always been at the back of my mind that I would be able to oneday. Please continue trying to make that day a reality for me and the others that would like to try them.

I must agree with you that "Scientists" goal is to find an answer for "Elegance disease", and not a way for hobbyists' to keep a healthy specimen flourishing in a home aquarium. I further agree that all of the really useful advances in reefkeeping have been made by hobbyists in the last 40 years. In the 1960s, virtually nobody could keep any kind of coral alive, and at the present time people with no aquarium experience can set up a tank that is hospitable to ALMOST any marine creature. Heck, in the sixties, most people in the SALTWATER hobby couldn't keep FISH alive.

I know that I'm speaking dangerously here, but I'll risk being flamed. THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION! A lot of people say that "certain creatures" shouldn't be kept in reef tanks, because of poor survival rates. But if nobody tries, can we ever hope to find a way for people to keep these delicate creatures? If someone is willing (like yourself), to do the environmental experiments necessary to find out what these creatures require for captive care, shouldn't the rest of us support and encourage these experiments? Personally, I think that we should.I know that mine is the minority opinion here, but I think that what you've done is commendable, and I'm hoping that you'll be willing to invest more of your' time and money investigating what is necessary for the captive care of other "Impossible" corals/creatures. I guess the underlying point here, is that progress is only possible when reasonable attempts are being made. Just bringing home a Difficult coral and plopping it into the tank, then watching it die doesn't confirm that it won't live in captivity. If you bring 8 or 10 home, place them in different environments, and most die but some survive, shouldn't the environment(s) that contain the survivors be investigated further? Even if they all die, does this REALLY prove that they are "unkeepable"? Or just that the right environment hasn't been found yet?

I applaud the environmental work that you have done with the "Elegance", and encourage you to keep it up!

Are you planning to "Aqua-culture" healthy Elegance corals to sell? If you are, please PM me.

Thanks again.
Dean

 

[sasquatch]

Darrell, have you summarized any treatment program, identified a common starting point with a first response action, perhaps that would be a starting point for preservation?Steve

 

[lcstorc]

Any time you have a coral that becomes ill and comes down with an infection it can be spread to other corals in the same system. It can even jump from one species to another. I believe that after an Elegance becomes burnt it can be weakend to the point that it is more prone to these infections, or these protozoans that have been found in dead and dieing coral tissue. This can be avoided if proper care is given. The problem for us is knowing what the different symptoms are and what steps we should take in these different situations.

For starters, let me say that I am relatively new to this hobby, but I do read a lot and am getting better at providing a good environment to keep the animals from the sea alive and thriving.
A few months ago I had a reef with several frogspawn and hammers that were thriving and doing great. Then I bought a frogspawn that was receeding. Knowing what I know now I should not have bought this coral that was in trouble but I like many thought I could save it. Well, to make a long story short the jelly disease ran through my tank and one by one killed all of my LPS.
Could something like that be at play here? Where healthy corals are infected by an ill coral? Just a thought and I certainly could be entirely off base.
Perhaps as you stated the seemingly healthy corals were stressed by too much light, but I would think if it was a protozian it would have to come from somewhere. I can't see something like that appearing out of the blue. I guess it could be dormant and then cause the damage when the coral is stressed, but I am thinking of it like a virus that has to come from somewhere and then spreads to other corals by being in the same system.

Anyway, just a thought. Like I said, I am new to all of this, but really do want to learn.

Oh and here is the bluespot thread if you would like to read it. We have lots of fun on that thread but also are sharing lots of experiences in order to learn from each other. We haven't come to anything resembling good data yet but hopefully we will, and I will improve the care of these beautiful fish.

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/saltwater-fish/16244-bluespot-club.html

Wow I talk a lot.

 

[cheeks69]

If the coral would have stayed where is was, and you could have kept the clown fish off of him, he most likely would have servived.

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.

 

[prow]

ok what up with neg karma meandean45. this was the first neg karma i got and i dont know why. so meandean45 why?

does anyone else think i deserve neg karma for anything i posted here?? can i too give neg karma to those that post something i just disagee with.

 

[elegance coral]

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.

 

[lcstorc]

ok what up with neg karma meandean45. this was the first neg karma i got and i dont know why. so meandean45 why?

does anyone else think i deserve neg karma for anything i posted here?? can i too give neg karma to those that post something i just disagee with.

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.