Elegance coral Questions for Elegance coral :) - Page 3

gsellers1245 · #51 07/17/2007, 10:12 PM

you also can see the difference with the radium on the left in the second pic

elegance coral · #52 07/18/2007, 01:42 PM

This is a pic of one of my corals from a while back. It looked much like your small one did when you got it. Now it looks like yours does now. I have seen these corals swell up like the rest so I have been keeping them in dimmer lighting to keep them from swelling. I'm not sure if this is the best long term environment for them though. I believe that my coral and yours has had time to adjust to the light they are in, but I believe they can handle more light. I have slowly, very slowly, been increasing the light on my coral and it seems to be doing well. If I increase the lights to fast the tentacle expansion is greatly decreased. Both of these corals have darkened up from when we first got them. This tells me that they have adapted to an environment with less light than what they came from. I believe the best possible environment for these corals is to be in lighting that is plenty strong enough to fuel their biological needs without burning them. This is the hard part. As dark as these corals are you would think they should have some room to adapt to brighter lights. If you wanted to help me out with this little experiment you could slowly begin increasing the light on the small coral. You have a much better camera than I do, so if you documented its reaction it would be a great help. You would have to do this very slowly. Moving it a few inches closer to the light and watching its reactions. A week or so later if all is well, it could be moved a few more inches closer to the light. Eventually the tentacles should start to fade and the green color on the oral disk should start getting brighter. I'm not sure though because I haven't completed this little experiment. You would have to be very careful. If the jump in light is to drastic the coral will swell up and the tissues will be damaged.

The large coral looks great, other than the flow issue. I have the same problem. It is hard even in my tank to get the flow just right. Flow causes the tentacles to get real long and beautiful, but if it is to strong the polyp wont expand. If the flow is to low the polyp will expand but the tentacles won't get near as long. Trying to get the flow just right in the middle is the hard part. As the coral grows this becomes even more of a problem. One part of the coral will be receiving stronger flow that other parts.

I am still buying Elegance corals myself. I plan on trying to bread these corals. Don't laugh

. The more corals I have the greater the odds become of one of them spawning.
I see you live in Florida. What area? I live in Lakeland.

gsellers1245 · #53 07/18/2007, 09:06 PM

im in brandon, like 30 mins away from you....if i take the bike 15 minutes

Trigeek · #54 07/19/2007, 01:55 PM

This thread is very impressive and my hat is off to you guys for having what appears to be thriving elegance. I've always loved these corals but have shyed away from them because they are known to be difficult. How long have you had these and what do you attribute your successes to?

gsellers1245 · #55 07/19/2007, 02:36 PM

well, i would say superior water quality, placement, flow, feeding time every 3 days and the most important ACCLIMATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT
also have found out some ammino acids and trace elements have boosted size

gsellers1245 · #56 07/19/2007, 03:17 PM

Today's update. I came home late lats night and the big one was swelled up and tentacles were drawn in. 15 minutes later it was back to normal. could it be when i adjusted the flow down and p***ed it off???? or it could have been one of my tangs. Was/ did it expell waste? But the flow is adjusted now and progress the very next day, it is as big as it has ever been
pics? of course i have pics
here it is when it was mad kinda in the middle but it was worse than that

today

gsellers1245 · #57 07/19/2007, 03:29 PM

here is an example of the flow i have it under
big one

little one

Serioussnaps · #58 07/19/2007, 03:52 PM

great vids...i think it was a response to flow personally if the tentacles went funny on you....leave it alone!!!!!!

elegance coral · #59 07/19/2007, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by gsellers1245
Today's update. I came home late lats night and the big one was swelled up and tentacles were drawn in. 15 minutes later it was back to normal. could it be when i adjusted the flow down and p***ed it off???? or it could have been one of my tangs. Was/ did it expell waste? But the flow is adjusted now and progress the very next day, it is as big as it has ever been
pics? of course i have pics
here it is when it was mad kinda in the middle but it was worse than that

You said you came home late. Were the lights on a little longer than normal? If so this would make sense.

gsellers1245 · #60 07/19/2007, 06:35 PM

no they are on timers and they do fine with 10 hours of halides but im gonna cut back to 8 hours here in about the next 2 weeks and observe the reaction. And i will document any change in size or color

elegance coral · #61 07/20/2007, 05:53 AM

Do you bump the thermostat on your ac up when you leave the house? The pic you posted looks like the reaction you get if the lights are to bright, the photo period is to long, or the temp climbs a few degrees above normal.

gsellers1245 · #62 07/20/2007, 09:28 AM

i have a chiller, the temp never goes above 81 or below 78. The thing that gets me is that it was only that way for about 15 minutes

elegance coral · #63 07/20/2007, 09:27 PM

If it was only like that for 15 minutes then it had to just be from a fish pecking at it or something. Mine will do that briefly if a snail starts cleaning their skeleton and gets to close to the polyp. Sorry if I over reacted. I get a little nervous when I see a healthy Elegance withdraw like that. The only fish I have is a mandarin and he doesn't cause any problems. The only reason I got him is because the pods got so big and so over populated that they were stealing food from my sick Elegance corals.

gsellers1245 · #64 07/21/2007, 02:36 AM

i figured it was something like that.

gsellers1245 · #65 07/24/2007, 09:45 PM

updates to come later in the week

elegance coral · #66 07/28/2007, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by gsellers1245
updates to come later in the week

Where did you go? The week is almost over

.

gsellers1245 · #67 07/30/2007, 05:03 PM

ok maybe the beginning of the next week

Few things happened this week.....first off i was adding fresh ro to the tank because i have an aqualifter on an adjustable ball valve for my topoff. Well the sump was getting low so i opened it up to almost a steady stream and well i forgot about it and the sump the next day was almost overflowing but didnt, it dumped in 10 gallons of fresh and maybe a little bit more. I removed 10 gallons and tested my salinity...it was 1.020-1.021. That was on tuesday. Saturday i did a 20 gallon w/c and both elegance seem to be having a hard time since the salinity drop. I elevated the salinity very very slowly as to not stress the fish. .002 a day. and now i'm baxk to 1.026 here's the pics
the little one now loks like its bleaching/losing zoox. and the big one is p.o'ed today.
You can notice the splotchyness on the little one. Its like the tentacles are changing colors.
here are yesterday's pics

here are today's pics...i think something fell into the big one maybe a snail....

elegance coral · #68 07/30/2007, 07:08 PM

On the small one, the tentacles that are fading, are they the ones that are more exposed to the light? Like the ones at the very top of the coral, or is it totally random? Is the polyp expansion and tentacle length the same as it was? The large one will most likely recover if an infection doesn't set in.
Don't feel bad man. I killed 4 of my corals when I let the temp get to high. At least your corals will most likely survive.

gsellers1245 · #69 07/30/2007, 09:56 PM

the whole coral on the small one is exposed to the same amount of light. The tentacles are a bit smaller and skinnier. Tonight when i got home the lights were off and the big one had opened up the part that was closed so thats a good sign. We'll see how it goes this week.

gsellers1245 · #70 08/02/2007, 08:43 PM

ok an update....i found out why the elegance was p.o'ed I dont think that it was the salinity drop that caused the stress....I had a newly added seabae anemone and it melted in the back of the tank....big mistake!!! i removed all the rotting anemone and siphoned out all the slime.....did a 20 gallon w/c again and put fresh carbon in. Today he's starting to open up in the recovering side....the funny thing is that the little one has shown no effect from this incodent except the brown tentacles turning green...maybe this is a cause of the changed light....going from 20k xm to 20k radium.....maybe it is just changing now .......

more picture updates tomorrow (friday)

gsellers1245 · #71 08/02/2007, 08:43 PM

also....photoperiod is now back to 8 hours.

gsellers1245 · #72 08/13/2007, 09:54 PM

ok i'm back just been very busy...the big one pulled through it and the little one has gotten bigger and has started to change color due to the lighting increase.
little one

big one

gsellers1245 · #73 08/13/2007, 09:55 PM

i counted 8 mouths on the little one also

elegance coral · #74 08/14/2007, 05:39 PM

Nice job! I told you they were going to survive.

They both look like they have improved quite a bit.

gsellers1245 · #75 08/14/2007, 10:41 PM

i was worried there for a couple of days