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elegance coral · 05-28-2007, 06:12 AM

This is one of the corals that bleached early on in my study. It was on deaths door. Now it is slowly regaining its algae and recovering.
I have no way of proving the skin thickness theory. Elegance corals of 15 to 20 years ago were able to withstand much more physical abuse than the corals that are comming into the hobby today. I'm not sure why this is. The only thing that makes sense to me is that the tissue covering these corals is thinner. A shrimp walking accross an Elegance that was in the hobby 15 years ago would cause no damage. I have had tangs peck at these corals and leave small white rings on the oral disk, but no other damage. Today the coral would be punctured by these encounters. These wounds can lead to infections and restrict the corals ability to expand to collect food and light. When a larval Elegance lands on a solid surface it has 2 choices. Adapt to this environment or die. If it lands in shallow water it will need to protect its algae from the high levels of UV light. One way of doing this would be to have a thick layer of tissue the light would have to penatrate to reach the algae. If it lands in deeper water the problem for its algae would be recieving enough light for photosynthesis. If the corals tissue was thinner much more light could reach its algae. This is the only explanation I can come up with to explain why these newer corals are damaged so easily when compaired to the corals of old.

05-28-2007, 06:12 AM	#4 (permalink)
elegance coral Fire Coral Join Date: May 2007 Location: central Florida Posts: 78 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Elegance Coral theory This is one of the corals that bleached early on in my study. It was on deaths door. Now it is slowly regaining its algae and recovering. I have no way of proving the skin thickness theory. Elegance corals of 15 to 20 years ago were able to withstand much more physical abuse than the corals that are comming into the hobby today. I'm not sure why this is. The only thing that makes sense to me is that the tissue covering these corals is thinner. A shrimp walking accross an Elegance that was in the hobby 15 years ago would cause no damage. I have had tangs peck at these corals and leave small white rings on the oral disk, but no other damage. Today the coral would be punctured by these encounters. These wounds can lead to infections and restrict the corals ability to expand to collect food and light. When a larval Elegance lands on a solid surface it has 2 choices. Adapt to this environment or die. If it lands in shallow water it will need to protect its algae from the high levels of UV light. One way of doing this would be to have a thick layer of tissue the light would have to penatrate to reach the algae. If it lands in deeper water the problem for its algae would be recieving enough light for photosynthesis. If the corals tissue was thinner much more light could reach its algae. This is the only explanation I can come up with to explain why these newer corals are damaged so easily when compaired to the corals of old.