Elegance Coral theory

[elegance coral]

I have been working on the Elegance coral problem for about a year and a half. I feel very strongly that I know why we are haveing such a hard time with these corals. If you are thinking of buying one of these corals and have any questions, please feel free to ask. I wrote my theory a few months ago and am more convinced about this taday then I was when I wrote it.

Elegance Coral Theory

Let me start by saying that I have a great deal of respect for the professionals in the hobby that have done work on this subject. I would hate to think where the hobby would be without the likes of people like Julian Sprung. My only problem is that I couldn’t find anyone doing research on live corals to find out what we could do to better care of them. All the information I could find was on dead or dieing corals. The professionals seemed content with saying that the problem was a parasitic protozoan living within the tissues of the coral and there is nothing we, the aquarists, can do about it. Dips don’t work and there is no other known cure for the problem. Catalaphyllia Jardinei, the Elegance coral is by far my favorite coral. I could not except that this is the fate of this beautiful coral, so I started my own experiments into this subject.
I started out by designing a stand that would hold a large sump/refuge and plenty of room for lights and other filtration equipment. Because Elegance corals are small when you buy them, and they don’t move around, all I needed was a small tank to house them in. The system is described bellow.
About 14 months ago, after the tank was up and running and finished with all the new tank issues, I started buying up all the Elegance corals I could find. 11 to date. In this time I have done many experiments with these corals. Different lights, water flow, food, and placement in the tank. I have come up with many theories in this time only to prove myself wrong. I now feel that I have a good understanding of what these corals are going through and how to bring them through. I have much more work to do, but after talking to friends, I have been convinced to post my findings a little prematurely. So here it is.
I do not believe that “the problem” is the protozoans living within the corals. My corals and many others around the world have recovered from this illness. I believe that the protozoans are opportunistic, attacking a week and stressed animal. I read about the theory that the problem was with the corals being collected from greater depths then they were years ago and that they were having problems adapting to the brighter lights of our aquariums. I originally dismissed this theory because the Elegance corals I have dealt with were wonderfully adaptable animals. With what I have seen in my own tank I have had to rethink my stand on this issue. These corals are having a very hard time adapting to low Kelvin temp lights. Even 10,000 K with actinic supplemental lighting seems to be to bright. I believe that the shrunken tentacles and overly inflated oral disk is a symptom of light exposure. A sun burn for corals. Just as you and I would need time to heal after our first day at the beach for the summer, an Elegance coral once it shows these symptoms will need time to heal even after it has been removed from the light. If the coral remains under these bright lights it probably wont make it. There seems to be one more symptom relating to these corals being collected at greater depths. This is where some people will disagree with me. The tissue or skin of these corals seems to be thinner than the shallow water corals. I believe this is an adaptation to the lower light levels at greater depths. This allows more light to penetrate the corals tissue and reach its zooxanthellae. We know that T. clams require more light as they grow due to the skin on their mantels becoming thicker with size. I know that this is not the same process that I am describing here, but the results are the same. I don’t know if this has ever been documented in other species or not. I can not, or will not, prove this point. In order to prove this one would have to sacrifice several shallow water corals and several deep water corals to examine their tissues under a microscope. I’m just not willing to do this. It is enough for me to compare the two living animals. A healthy shallow water Elegance has thick skin. I have seen tangs, clown, and other animals harass these corals with little or no damage. The deeper water corals will be ripped open by the slightest assault. The only coral I lost during this experiment so far was due to a Coral Banded Shrimp walking across the oral disk of the Elegance. The shrimps little pointed feet would puncture the corals tissue. By the time I got the shrimp out it was to late. I have had tangs and clowns nip at these corals causing small holes in the tissues. Even fish with parasites can cause holes by scratching themselves on the coral.
So, It is my opinion that if you want your Elegance to live a long healthy life in your aquarium there are a few things you must do. First be very gentle with them. They can be damaged very easily. Find a spot in the tank away from low Kelvin temp lights. This will be the hard part. I have two bleached corals from insufficient lighting. (They are recovering nicely though.) To much light will burn them and not enough will cause them to bleach. Separate them from any stress in the beginning. This means no tangs or clown fish or anything that may harass the coral. For their long term success I believe that they should be acclimated to the brighter lights. This is a very, very slow process. Once the coral has adapted to the brighter light it should be just as hardy as the corals of old. I believe that their skin will thicken up given the time to do so. At this point I don’t fear any of my corals dieing. I still have 10 in different stages of this situation. In time I believe they will be large, beautiful, and healthy. One more thing, Feed your coral small pieces of shrimp or fish. NOT from your grocery store. They add preservatives to our food that may not be good for our corals. Buy from your LFS. Don’t try to feed your coral when its tentacles are withdrawn. This will only stress the coral. Feed once a week if the coral is healthy enough to feed.
Good luck and thanks for taking the time to read about my theories.

Darrell Sutton,
AKA Elegance Coral

[mps9506]

The tissue or skin of these corals seems to be thinner than the shallow water corals. I believe this is an adaptation to the lower light levels at greater depths. This allows more light to penetrate the corals tissue and reach its zooxanthellae.

I question this theory simply because these corals are not adapted to move. Therefore any evolutionary advantage to having different "skin" thickness would not exist. From my understanding corals do not adapt to differing light condtions by growing thicker or thinner skin, but by altering the amount of pigments to maximize or limit the amount of light absorbed by the zooxanthelle.
Also do you have any info on where collectors are currently collecting elegance corals from currently? Traditionally I understood they were being collected in lagoonal areas, back reefs and grassbeds. I don't know much about where they are currently being collected from though. I believe Eric B. was supposed to be getting an Elegance Coral project going where they were going to document the collection of these guys a bit better, but I don't know what the status of that is currently. Maybe you have heard?
But typically they are described as being from areas that are more nutrient rich, have high amouts of microfauna, and areas that are prone to high turbidity (all in comparsion ot forereef and reef flat areas). Most of us are trying to create fore reef or reef flat type environments that are typically not where these corals are found and I suspect tend to stress these corals out.
I would love to see some growth rate and photos of what you have going on.

[DaveK]

Originally Posted by elegance coral

I have been working on the Elegance coral problem for about a year and a half. I feel very strongly that I know why we are haveing such a hard time with these corals. ...

I believe you may be on to something here. It may not be the entire reason behind elegance corals being tough to keep, but I do believe it's a step in the correct direction.

About 20 years ago, elegance corals that were available were obviously from shallower water, in other words easy to collect. These would be able to deal with brighter light, and would be subject to more red and yellow light. They were not considered especially difficult to keep. I did know several people that kept them for extended periods of time. (Over several years)

In addition, 20 years ago, it was a rare person that used MH, or even VHO lighting. Many of us got by with normal output fluorescent lighting, typically using something like 4 bulbs over a 55 gal tank. This is only about 3w per gal, a very low amount by todays standards.

Also, even the normal output bulbs were limited. Full spectrum bulbs used with actinic bulbs was preferred. The full spectrum bulbs had a color temp of only about 5000K to 6500K. While this was a low color temp, not very much light was being used. (See above) The actinic bulbs would have provided a lot of blue light.

Reef systems 20 years ago used much less powerful filtration systems, especially in the area of skimmers. So the water would tend to have more nutrients. Elegance corals will feed on small bits of shrimp and other similar food, so I'm not sure if this could be a problem or not.

Good luck with your project. Elegance coral is one I'd sure like to see available in large amounts, through propagation. When they are in good shape that are a fantastic coral.

Another factor may be that we use a lot more circulation in our systems today. A lot of other corals love this flow. I'm not sure about elegance corals.

[elegance coral]

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.

[elegance coral]

Thanks for your replies. This is a pic of one of my Elegance corals from about 15 years ago. Sorry for the quality, it is a pic of a 35mm photo. We didn't have digital cameras back then.
I believe that I am done with this portion of my research. I have placed my corals in many different environments and now believe that the main problem with these corals is light. Anyone interest in keeping one of these corals should start them out under 50/50 PC lighting or as close to this as they can get. They should stay away from MH lighting unless it is a high kelvin rated light and the coral can be placed a good distance from it. If the coral shows any signs of fading in color in this low light environment it should be moved closer to the light. I know that people have a fear of placing their Elegance corals on the rocks, but if the coral is not moved to slightly brighter light it will die. If your coral starts to appear swollen and retracts its tentacles, or begins expelling algae from its mouths, it is recieving to much light. You will need to move it further away from the light or find a slightly shaded area for it. These adjustments in light should be done in small steps. These corals can burn in a matter of seconds under bright light. If this happens it will take many months for the coral to heal. So, start out with good quality light but not bright. Watch the coral for these symtoms and be ready to move the coral accordingly. If you can keep these corals away from stress related to other inhabitants in the aquarium, and fallow the steps above reguarding light, there isn't any reason you can't be sucessful with these corals. All of my Elegance corals are doing much better and continue to grow.
One more thing. They still have the same requirements as most LPS's. That is, they should be fed and they do not appreciat high flow. Feeding is the same as the feeding for large anemones. Small pieces of shrimp or fish (not from the grocery store) wiggled in its tentacles to cause a feeding responce once a week seems to work fine. Good luck and thanks for taking the time to read about my research.

[meandean45]

Hi Darrell!

Thanks for sharing your' observations with us. Having never kept Elegance Corals, I don't feel much inclined to comment on your' theory, but do have a question or two.

The "Old" Elegance corals that were colllected from the inshore reef areas were often exposed to high nutrient/nearly murky water conditions. Wouldn't this murkiness/particulate laden water have helped to protect them from the bright light, similar to placing a diffuser over the light source?

Is it possible that the "New" Elegance corals need this Diffused light/nutrient laden water? Did you try a well lit murky water type environment in your' experiments? The Elegance that I remember seeing "Back in the Day" at my LFS were in a Bare-bottom tank, No skimmer, No sump, No filter, with 50/50 VHOs as the only light source. the only nutrient export was through a weekly 10 gallon water change (60 gallon tank). Obviously this was a very turbid, nutrient rich environment. It was also very inhospitable to other inverts (with the exceptions of a few soft corals and a couple of other LPS (candy cane/trumpet, open brain). This is the theory that my LFS (and many others) have been using to explain the sudden increase in losses of Elegance corals. Do you suppose that the lack of dissolved nutrients could be the reason that the "New" Elegance Corals Tissue is no longer strong enough to tolerate a shrimp walking on it?
I don't mean to belittle you, or your' work, and I'm genuinely pleased to see someone trying to do something about this. I know that it's much easier to be an armchair critic than to get out there and do the work as you have done!!!
Thanks for your' labors on our behalf!
Dean

[boozeman]

Originally Posted by mps9506

. I believe Eric B. was supposed to be getting an Elegance Coral project going where they were going to document the collection of these guys a bit better, but I don't know what the status of that is currently. Maybe you have heard?

linky :
Reef Central Online Community - The Elegance Coral Project

[prow]

i also wanted to know why the change in the care levels. so about 5 years or so ago i did a little research on these corals too. did not experiment with them though. it was the time eric started his project so i gave him some money for it, many did, and just did a compileing of work already done. sence that time i have only got a couple updates, only on equipment he was buying nothing on the coral itsself. i have heard of many troubles going on with eric sence the project started, form his tanks crashing, to a possible issues with goverment/navy owned corals.. anyway i dont think any info will ever come from that project eric started. that donation i made for the project is probably in his lawyers pocket by now. anyway being in the local i am and haveing been a beach gaurd for sometime, long ago, i know many people working around the beaches and ended up visiting and talking in great detail to those at the public aquarium in cabrilo beach, pacific aquarium of long beach and of course sea world. i found out many things about them. its a long story i will post more later if i can find the paper i was writing(i forgot the name of the file and cant find it)but, for a little intro; the corals form deap waters get most of there nutrients form plankton and stuff they trap and eat. surface elegances tend to rely more on photosynthesis, this may also be the reason for flow variations. they both do both but one relies more on one proccess than the other. the dkh of the water comes into play here. in waters(shallow) with higher dkh they rely on photosyntesis as their energy source. in waters(deaper) with lower dkh they tend to rely more on stuff floating by. here is where is gets difficult to get info because most of the work that has been done focusses on a certain area/region and the impacts on that coral from that region on that region. not much on comparing various regions. you have to research projects done at variuos regions and depths than compare and contrast the results. a long and tedious adventure of sorting through it all. i am sure you found that deap water specimens are normally found attcked to rock and shallow waters you find them in the substrate. possible related to their nutrient needs. high flow rates for deeper water and mild flow for shallow. i never finished after talking with those at sea world. i found its best to reseach the coral based on the region it was collected from to best understand that particular corals needs. flow wise, in part, i think the extra mucus produced from shallow water elegance corals feed many bacteria and algeas. so they dont need the same flow becasue the food is coming to them. deaper water species need the flow. just a extra something on the flow thing i have noticed.

Originally Posted by mps9506

I question this theory simply because these corals are not adapted to move. Therefore any evolutionary advantage to having different "skin" thickness would not exist. From my understanding corals do not adapt to differing light condtions by growing thicker or thinner skin, but by altering the amount of pigments to maximize or limit the amount of light absorbed by the zooxanthelle.

your right, but a little off. they dont move and have to acclimate themselves. they do alter their pigments aswell, but they do aslo adapt to their surrounding. this is going to be a little dificlult for me to explain. i can see how "elegance coral" could be see the skin as being thicker. but its not the skin. the corals will secreate it mucus when irritated to protect itself from the sun. after time goes by and the continued mucus production, for protection, the mucus membranes become inflamed and do thicken. its not that the skin is thicker, it just appears that way. the mucus membranes which my appear to the naked eye as "thicker skin" is just inflammed membranes. these longterm inflammed membranes changes things. how to say this ok, its kinda like someone with COPD(chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) over time those with it have adapted to breathing in a different way. normally a degrease in O2 stimulates breathing, for those with COPD it is a elelvated CO2 that stimulates breathing. give a person with COPD lots of extra O2 and their respiration become depressed because elevated O2 will decrease the saturation of the CO2, the trigger for COPDers to breath and thus with no trigger their breathing is suppressed. so corals from shallow waters have different triggers. i know i suck at explaining sorry about that, i hope you get what i tring to say. its like comparing those that live in cities or smoker lungs to mountian dwellers. they both need gas exchange but have different ways of regulating how/when they need it aswell as different tiggers that tells them when they need to increase or decrease things. much like the elegance corals and their mucus city dweller/smokers lungs secreations change and altered their triggers regulating gas exchange, the corals have adapted to thier environment in a similar fashoin. life dont you love it.

[boozeman]

*cough*

[Dentoid]

[elegance coral]

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

[charlesr1958]

Having had daily access to the Philippine fringing reefs over that last three years, I can state that nutrient levels, as those being discussed are not something I would put into the equation of keeping this species. Nor the light levels either. I see a great many elegance corals each time I hit the water, which can be found at depths between 10 to 35 feet in water clarity that I would not call "reef grade" or "clear" by any stretch of the word. Being all of the same species, and the fact that any coral can adapt to varying light intensity, it would be wrong to assume that those corals found in deeper water could not adjust to a higher intensity, if done properly. I've done it. I also test the reefs water and have never been able to get a detectable level of any nitrates.
The problems captive kept elegance corals have been having is one of being a pathogen and not one of having two distinct "types" of elegance corals (shallow/deep). I also have never seen a wild elegance coral having any of the problems that those in captivity have been having. Which tells me that the problem is one of contamination/infection and not one of basic coral care or one of "skin" thickness.
As for Eric's work and study on this problem, please be patient. Having to isolate the suspected pathogen(s), scan them under an electron microscope, having other scientists review/study the results as well as pouring over the hundreds of such scans, and then compiling the information is not going to happen over night. I would not look for any conclussions for quite some time.
An elegance coral is an easy coral to keep, that is, if you have a heathly specimen to start out with. Moderate light and flow, reef grade water, and feed it at least once a week. If you buy one that is infected/contaminated, there is nothing much you can do to save it other than what you would normaly do and cross your fingers. Hopefully once the pathogen(s) are isolated, if they can be, it will lead to a cure or at least a prevention method. Untill such time, I would not suggest anyone buy one.

Chuck

[mps9506]

Thanks for the info Chuck, I unfortunately have not seen much info on exactly where these corals are being collected. Good to hear some first hand accounts. I'm just hoping that Eric's coral project will continue to go through as the pathogen hypothesis seems very promising.

[charlesr1958]

I had forgotten to add this update :

Elegance coral update

Chuck

[elegance coral]

Originally Posted by charlesr1958

Having had daily access to the Philippine fringing reefs over that last three years, I can state that nutrient levels, as those being discussed are not something I would put into the equation of keeping this species. Nor the light levels either. I see a great many elegance corals each time I hit the water, which can be found at depths between 10 to 35 feet in water clarity that I would not call "reef grade" or "clear" by any stretch of the word. Being all of the same species, and the fact that any coral can adapt to varying light intensity, it would be wrong to assume that those corals found in deeper water could not adjust to a higher intensity, if done properly. I've done it. I also test the reefs water and have never been able to get a detectable level of any nitrates.
The problems captive kept elegance corals have been having is one of being a pathogen and not one of having two distinct "types" of elegance corals (shallow/deep). I also have never seen a wild elegance coral having any of the problems that those in captivity have been having. Which tells me that the problem is one of contamination/infection and not one of basic coral care or one of "skin" thickness.
As for Eric's work and study on this problem, please be patient. Having to isolate the suspected pathogen(s), scan them under an electron microscope, having other scientists review/study the results as well as pouring over the hundreds of such scans, and then compiling the information is not going to happen over night. I would not look for any conclussions for quite some time.
An elegance coral is an easy coral to keep, that is, if you have a heathly specimen to start out with. Moderate light and flow, reef grade water, and feed it at least once a week. If you buy one that is infected/contaminated, there is nothing much you can do to save it other than what you would normaly do and cross your fingers. Hopefully once the pathogen(s) are isolated, if they can be, it will lead to a cure or at least a prevention method. Untill such time, I would not suggest anyone buy one.

Chuck

These corals can and do adapt to higher light levels. If you take a Canadian and drop them off in the middle of the Austrailian outback they will most likely die of exposure in a very short time, while the natives have been living there for a very long time. If you give that same Canadian time to adjust to the new environment his odds of servival will be greatly improved. If you take an Elegance that has been living near its maximum depth where it recieved a limited amount of light and throw them into a tank with bright MH lighting it will die in a very short time. The symtom these corals show with the over inflated oral disk and shrunken tentacles is the result of light exposure. I have tested this many times. If you place one of these corals that seems healthy under bright light they begin to show these symtoms in minutes. Once this happens the coral is damaged and will require a great deal of time to recover. I do agree with you on the nutrient levels in the water.
There is absolutly no proof that the protazoans found living in dead or dieing corals is the reason for thier demise. All that anyone can say is that they found them. No one knows what they are or what thier function is. If they were parasites eating these corals alive I would not have a tank full of corals that are improving every day. No matter what these protazoans are or how they live, I can safely say that they are not the cause of the problem.
I didn't simply come up with the theory of light exposure and deside to tell people about it. I have spent about the last year and a half placing Elegance corals in many different environments. When I started this study I believed that the problem was caused by these protazoans as well. After watching the reactions of these corals when placed in these different environments I have been forced to change my mind. Most people over here are still buying Elegance corals only to watch them die in thier aquariums. I know how to keep these corals alive. To date I have killed 3 Elegance corals and made many more ill trying to find the cause of this problem. I don't need to kill any more. If these corals are placed in the correct environment they will survive and do well in our aquariums. This would not be possible if they were being eaten alive by killer protazoans. If I can keep these corals alive and healthy then any experiaenced hobbyist should be able to keep these corals. I have spent the time and money to find out how to care for these corals, and am now telling people how to do it for themselves. Most people have their own theory as to why these corals are not doing well. Just as I did when I started. I can only hope that people listen to what I have to say and rethink their position on this subject. For those who need proof I will be posting pics once a month to show the progress of my corals. Anyone interested in keeping an Elegance coral is more than welcome to contact me and I will do my best to help in any way I can.
Thanks, Darrell