[DrDNA]

Let me elaborate a little more on the condition of the "sick" elegance coral I have. The oral disk does not seem to swell up. It does open up but doesn't get "puffy", but the tentacles don't inflate much either. It is like the coral is trying to expand but doesn't fill up with water. I really should take a pic. It doesn't look like the characteristic "sick" ones that look like a water balloon. As for gently blowing off the mucus, it just seemed like the common sense thing to do to allow fresh seawater to get to the polyp.

Regarding amino acids etc, I dose my tank daily with "ecosystems reef solution". I don't know what is in the bottle, but it does seem to have a positive effect on my tank (more polyp extension, better colors, etc). I recently tried dosing Elos amino acids and stopped after a couple days when all my zoas refused to open and the other LPS seemed unhappy. So, that is a mystery there...

I don't buy into the pathogen theory either, but I also can't offer an alternative hypothesis. My gut level feeling is that there is just something simple we are all missing that changed somewhere along the line. Just because Borneman says it is a pathogen, everyone jumps on the bandwagon. But, to this date, no one has demonstrated a cause and effect of a pathogen causing the "disease". No pathogen has been isolated, cultured, and then demonstrated to cause the condition when a healthy elegans is exposed to it via a challenge.