Who has had success with elegance corals?

[Anonymous]

Everything in my tank is doing supremely well, and I think I'm ready to try one. Anyone have these for an extended period of time, like over a year?

Peace,

Chip

 

[Unarce]

The elegance was the last LPS coral I kept before completely switching over to SPS several years ago. I kept this piece for 5 years before trading it in for some frags. The most important thing is to not overskim your system. I'm not a skimmer user (to this day), so this made it easy. Elegance inhabit muddy, lagoonal type calm waters with high nutrient levels. Also, don't make the mistake of trying to attain the best visibility of its beauty by lying it on its side. They should always be facing straight up, with the cone shaped bottom, deep in the sand.

 

[Unarce]

Oh yeah, low current and strong blue-spectrum lighting. Again, best placement would be in the sand bed.

 

[rocknut]

I have had mine for about 7 months right now, in a primarily SPS tank, it has been doing just fine. I did notice that several weeks ago, just before I had a minor diatom bloom, it looked the best it ever has (higher than normal nutrients.)

 

[Luis]

I've had mine for about 2 years, I don't have protein skimmer and I feed it on brine shrimp soaked in Selcon every other day, I have it in the bottom of my tank right over the sandbed and I use to pour some phytoplankton twice a week.

Sometimes it looks sick for a couple days but suddenly it looks normal.

I hope this can help and good luck.

 

[Anonymous]

I kept one for about 2 years before it suddenly started to recede and die. It was a cool coral, but I won't try to keep another one untill I figure out the secret for their sucess.

Andrew

 

[mark78]

I keep hearing horror stories about these corals latley. Awhile back they were as hardy as can be. IMO a lot has to do with how the coral looks in the store, they are probably shipping worse now if I had to make a guess who knows.

 

[Johnsteph10]

I, too, kept one for about 3 years...and then it slowly began to die (I just finally quit hoping against hope and took it out today). The only thing I can think of, like the ones above mentioned, is that it likes dirty tanks. I added a euroreef cs-2 -- lots of gunk out, but no more elegance. Everything else, however, looks great.
Place it on the sand like above, low current (enough to sway the tentacles) and low-moderate light (unless you slowly acclimate it to higher light). Fed it 1-2/week with various meaty foods soaked in selcon, phytoplankton/cyclop-eeze (boy did it color nicely with the eeze!).

There's my experience!

John

 

[qwiksilver]

Yeah, it's like the Banggai. We used to get really healthy one's in at the store that were bulletproof. Now, out of a batch of 20 were lucky if 3 survive. Not tankraised. I think it is the way they are caught and shipped.

I think its the same for coral too, and the elegance are another finicky sp. Some shipments we get in are amazing and the polyps are out fully within a few hours, but other shipments they only partially come out or never come out at all and die. Too bad, a beautiful coral that I am sure isn't unlimited but is being harvested like crazy. When will we realize all things have limits?? I guess usually not until they run out and are gone!

 

[Len]

All the ones I had a decade ago were hardy and long-lived. All the ones I've tried in the past 5 years (about 3-4 specimens) did not last more then 6 months. They'd look fine in the beginning but then suddenly decay in a matter of days. I wish I knew what it was and I wish I hadn't sold some of my early Elegance corals.

 

[Unarce]

There have been a couple of explanations as to why Elegance Coral seem to be more difficult to keep nowadays. One was that there's a bacterial epidemic that plagues them in the wild. The other is that collecting practices have become suspect. I haven't seen any research or literature backing either claim.

 

[middletonmark]

If you haven't heard about Eric B.'s recent work, you should check this out:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-02/e ... /index.htm

For those who don't want to click - he's the backround/intro section.

The Elegance Coral Project

Background and Introduction

For many years, elegance corals (Catalaphyllia jardinei) were among the easiest corals to keep in aquaria. Over the past five years, most entering the trade are doomed because of a condition for which there is no known cause or cure. In this condition, the coral adopts a relatively swollen oral disk with a fringe of unextended tentacles. The coral tissue eventually shrinks, and the coral dies despite all manner of experimental intervention.

In some cases, a white opaque mucus-like web may be present. I am not sure if this is an entirely separate condition, somehow related, secondary to the primary condition, or part of the same condition.

There has been much speculation as to why this condition now occurs, and various sources have suggested causes and even cures. But I stress that no research to my knowledge has been done on this condition, and to date none of the potential causes, solutions, or cures seems to have much validity.

These corals are extremely beautiful and desirable. Unfortunately today, the survival of them puts them in a similar class with Goniopora stokesi where survival rates are too low to justify the large-scale collection of them from the wild. In fact, Catalaphyllia appear to be relatively rare species and may be highly overcollected so that populations in some collection areas are threatened or even locally extinct. To continue to collect rare species that have extremely low survival is bad for everyone – it is an economic loss, a resource waste, and a source of great frustration for all those who purchase and attempt to keep them alive.

Not all Catalaphyllia shows signs of this condition. Occasionally, I see them in stores with a normal healthy appearance. During surveys of coral collection areas, I never saw one with this condition in the wild, and of hundreds being held in tanks for export, only a single specimen showed the signs of the pathology. To be sure, Catalaphyllia are being collected from dramatically different types of habitats, and may be collected from very different places from where they were collected years ago when they were easy-to-maintain. I could speculate logically as to many potential reasons for their current conditions and demise, but unfortunately this speculation would be no better than the complete lack of understanding of this condition that currently exists.

Because of the desirability and immense popularity of Catalaphyllia, as well as to learn more about this highly unstudied species, and to help ensure the populations of wild elegance corals and the success of them in tanks, I propose to conduct a formal study of the condition to attempt to determine its cause and any possible solutions so that once again we can enjoy healthy elegance corals in our tanks.

My research field is the investigation of coral diseases with currently unknown etiologies. I would like to volunteer my services to help provide answers to the elegance coral condition. Together with collaborative work from some of my colleagues, I believe we can determine the cause of high mortality resulting from this condition. I will attempt to do this in the most economical and efficacious manner possible, and will provide results to all applicable forums upon its completion.