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elegance coral · 05-28-2007, 08:39 PM

Hello, Dean.
I didn't take it as you were belittling me, so if you were it went right over my head. Anyway, I will try to answer your questions.
The shallow water corals we recieved back in the day came from grass flats. When authers describe these environments they tend to paint a picture of a coral living in swamp water. This simply isn't the case. When compaired to the waters around coral reefs the water of the grass flats have much more particulate matter in it. However visability is still pretty good. A massive amount of light reaches these corals that live just a few feet under the water. In Julian Sprung and Charles Delbecks first book "The Reef Aquarium" there is a picture of a large Elegance living in 5 feet of water. The water is not crystal clear like it is around coral reefs or out in the open ocean, but it is no where near the swamp water environment many people picture them to live in. The old Elegance in the pic I posted lived in an aquarium not all that different then the ones we keep today. I didn't have a refugium but I grew algae in the display tank to remove neutrients. I had a 6 foot skimmer and a home made nitrate filter. I also used Kalk as my makeup water. This was on a BB 55gl tank. The lights were a 250W 5500K MH, 2 actinic 110W VHS's and 2 40W actinics. This was a very bright tank. My water was always very clean. They still talk about that old Elegance of mine in my LFS. It grew into a monster. If an Elegance is fed properly it does not need high levels of neutrients in the water. The corals I have now are in a very clean aquarium. They are all growing and improving in health. I have been keeping these corals for a very long time. I don't agree with the school of thought that these corals need dirty water to be happy. In my experience the very apposite is true. You don't need to test your water for things like nitrate or phosphate in an aquarium with a large healthy Elegance. If these levels begin to climb the coral will reduce its expansion. The higher these levels become the smaller the Elegance will be. If the water is changed and the levels drop the Elegance will begin to expand like normal again. I would not advise putting your Elegance through this, but it is how they react to dirty water.
I have spent all this time and money on my research to help save these corals. People will always buy Elegance corals even if they know they are hard to keep. The only way to save these corals is to find out how to keep them alive and then tell people. This is what I have tried to do. There are people that will disagree with me because they read something somewhere or someone told them that there was a different problem. All I can do is post pics of my corals in recovery while most others are dieing. Tell people how I'm doing it and hope that they take the time to listen. If I can present enough evidence to people maybe I can save some of these corals that I care so much about.
I hope that I answered your questions and if i have caused more questions please feel free to ask. Thanks for your interest in my work.
Darrell

05-28-2007, 08:39 PM	#11 (permalink)
elegance coral Fire Coral Join Date: May 2007 Location: central Florida Posts: 78 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Elegance Coral theory Hello, Dean. I didn't take it as you were belittling me, so if you were it went right over my head. Anyway, I will try to answer your questions. The shallow water corals we recieved back in the day came from grass flats. When authers describe these environments they tend to paint a picture of a coral living in swamp water. This simply isn't the case. When compaired to the waters around coral reefs the water of the grass flats have much more particulate matter in it. However visability is still pretty good. A massive amount of light reaches these corals that live just a few feet under the water. In Julian Sprung and Charles Delbecks first book "The Reef Aquarium" there is a picture of a large Elegance living in 5 feet of water. The water is not crystal clear like it is around coral reefs or out in the open ocean, but it is no where near the swamp water environment many people picture them to live in. The old Elegance in the pic I posted lived in an aquarium not all that different then the ones we keep today. I didn't have a refugium but I grew algae in the display tank to remove neutrients. I had a 6 foot skimmer and a home made nitrate filter. I also used Kalk as my makeup water. This was on a BB 55gl tank. The lights were a 250W 5500K MH, 2 actinic 110W VHS's and 2 40W actinics. This was a very bright tank. My water was always very clean. They still talk about that old Elegance of mine in my LFS. It grew into a monster. If an Elegance is fed properly it does not need high levels of neutrients in the water. The corals I have now are in a very clean aquarium. They are all growing and improving in health. I have been keeping these corals for a very long time. I don't agree with the school of thought that these corals need dirty water to be happy. In my experience the very apposite is true. You don't need to test your water for things like nitrate or phosphate in an aquarium with a large healthy Elegance. If these levels begin to climb the coral will reduce its expansion. The higher these levels become the smaller the Elegance will be. If the water is changed and the levels drop the Elegance will begin to expand like normal again. I would not advise putting your Elegance through this, but it is how they react to dirty water. I have spent all this time and money on my research to help save these corals. People will always buy Elegance corals even if they know they are hard to keep. The only way to save these corals is to find out how to keep them alive and then tell people. This is what I have tried to do. There are people that will disagree with me because they read something somewhere or someone told them that there was a different problem. All I can do is post pics of my corals in recovery while most others are dieing. Tell people how I'm doing it and hope that they take the time to listen. If I can present enough evidence to people maybe I can save some of these corals that I care so much about. I hope that I answered your questions and if i have caused more questions please feel free to ask. Thanks for your interest in my work. Darrell