Elegance Coral theory

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by DrDNA
As for nutrients, I recall it still having some nitrates and phosphates, definitely enough to make hair algae grow. This was about ten years ago, I don't recall what the parameters were, but I seem to think we'd be happy if nitrates were under 10ppm. Also, there was a lot less flow too than your modern day SPS tanks.
When people say that currently most elegance corals are collected from deeper waters, what exactly do you mean? Are they coming from 20 feet, 50 feet, etc? From what I understood in the past, most elegance corals were found in seagrass beds or laying on soft sediments. Seagrass itself doesn't grow in deep water since it is an angiosperm and supposedly needs bright light, at least fromwhat I understand (could be wrong of course)...
Just curious!

Jeff

I'm sorry! I don't know how I missed this post. According to Borenman these corals are coming from as far down as 114 feet, or at least were photographed at this depth. I have heard other reports of these corals being collected at 60 feet. Either way the available light at these depths is much different than the light in the shallow grass flats. Elegance corals can be found in a wide range of environments. This is the reason for all the myth and misunderstanding of this corals requirements.

[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.

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by DrDNA


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. [/B]

I'm glad to hear that your coral is not swelling. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference so I just wanted to make sure. It sounds like your coral will be fine. It will just take a long time to fully recover. It's tentacles will remain small for quite some time. They are a good barometer of the corals recovery. Over time the tentacles will slowly get longer and longer. It's sting will become stronger as well and it will begin feeding. This just doesn't happen over night.


Your right. Borenman found several different organisms living in dead and dieing Elegance coral tissue. It would be a lot of work to culture these organisms then expose a healthy coral to them to test the results. Even then I don't believe this would prove that they are the cause of the problem. We have known for a very long time that infections can be contagious in a closed system. In your case and many times in my system there have been very ill corals in with healthy ones. I assume your two large Elegance corals are still doing fine. This problem is not contagious. The only time it becomes contagious is after a coral has developed an infection. The infection is secondary and not the cause of the problem.
I think you should trust your gut feeling. There is something simple that changed along the way that many of us have been missing. Including myself. It is the fact that these corals are coming from deeper waters. They have a much harder time adjusting to the brighter lights of our aquariums. They show their distaste for bright lights by swelling up and withdrawing their tentacles. After their tissues have been ravaged by this exposure they shrivel up, discharge these filaments, produce a great deal of slime, and require a very long time to rebuild this damaged tissue. It can be done though.
I hope my lfs gets in an appropriate Elegance soon so that I can make the video showing the coral swelling up under bright lights and the rapid decline in health after the fact.

[John Kelly]

Originally posted by elegance coral
John Kelly, have you noticed a connection between temp and your corals bleaching?

I must have missed this question...

No, not directly. My main tank is consistently 83-84 during the day in the summer. Sometimes it hits 85-86 in the spring when I'm adjusting between using heat and AC and forget to turn on the AC. I would hate to let it get any higher than that. They do appear stressed above 85, but haven't bleached. I do keep a few layers of black fiberglass mesh between the lights and water surface, which act as gentle shading for the corals. This probably keeps the internal temp of the corals down a little bit.

[John Kelly]

I previously worked as a professional grower at a greenhouse. It is amazing the amount of bugs, diseases, and afflictions that set in when a plant is in less than perfect health, which usually comes from giving it less than ideal care and/or keeping it in a less than ideal environment.
Corals are very similar to plants in this regard.

[Rockitmakr]

Ok,
perhaps I should wait until tomorrow but I am really excited about what happened today. I went to the SRC conference in Orlando, hoping to see Eric Borneman, had no luck. I did however bump into a gentleman named Paul Hines, as we struck up some small talk , we began to talk about how I really wanted to see Eric so that I could ask him about his progress on the Elegance Coral Project. Paul told me that he knew of a guy locally that has really done a lot of research on Elegance corals & might have a cure to my issue.... Well, I recently bought a beautiful Elegance that looked awesome in the LFS display, looked good in mine too, for a day or two.... Then as luck would have it, this coral began to really look sick. I thought that my tank might be out of whack or something but it was not at all. So, after finally finding this thread, I read some posts & decided to move the coral out of the light & into a more secluded area of my tank. Within 1 hour of moving it, things were already starting to look better. I will see how it looks tomorrow but I will say that low light & flow are really making a difference thus far.
Thank you!

[elegance coral]

I'm glad to see things looking up for you. Keep us posted on its condition.
I picked up 3 very sick Elegance corals from my LFS just over a week ago. I picked them up for $25 each because they were on deaths door. Here are pics of the day after placing them in my tank and at one week.

Day one

week one

Day one

Week one

Week one


They still have a long way to go, but as long as they are improving I'm happy.

[jman77]

what kind of light are you putting the elegances under ? i picked up a very sick elegance at a LFS over a month & 1/2 ago and it's doing very good so far. I've got it on the sump on some eggcrate, feed it ever 4 days, very loowwww flow, and have it under 130w of 3 year old CF bulbs.

[elegance coral]

My lights are listed at the bottom of my posts. The MH is 14K and it only runs for a few hours a day. What are you feeding your Elegance?

[Serioussnaps]

At what point is there not enough light for these corals. I am currently in the process of saving some pennies for a new 180, but there is an elegance(very large) that has been doing outstanding in an LFS around here for about 2 months. I am tempted to buy it, put it in my sump under some actinic PC lighting(2x65 or 1x65) but didnt know if it would be too little? What do you think? My gut tells me to hold off, but this is an unreal specimen that I dont thin kI will see again in an LFS around here for a while. I dont want to buy an elegance off the internet so you see the pickle I am in. There is no way this specimen can be in my display/growout......its a full fledged SPS tank with lots of flow and no room.

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by Serioussnaps
At what point is there not enough light for these corals. I am currently in the process of saving some pennies for a new 180, but there is an elegance(very large) that has been doing outstanding in an LFS around here for about 2 months. I am tempted to buy it, put it in my sump under some actinic PC lighting(2x65 or 1x65) but didnt know if it would be too little? What do you think? My gut tells me to hold off, but this is an unreal specimen that I dont thin kI will see again in an LFS around here for a while. I dont want to buy an elegance off the internet so you see the pickle I am in. There is no way this specimen can be in my display/growout......its a full fledged SPS tank with lots of flow and no room.

What lighting is it under now? If it is still very large after 2 months under the same lights I would try to mimic those lights. I have been told that they have just opened a new area for collecting Elegance corals. I Recently bought a shallow water coral that was not from Australia, so I think there may be something to this story. The coral you are talking about is probably a shallow water coral. Most of the deep water corals have been damaged to some extent by the time they reach our LFS so they aren't very large. If you could snap a couple of pics of the coral and post them here I would most likely be able to tell you if it is a shallow water coral or a deep water coral. A shallow water coral would not do well under the PC lighting. I'm sorry I can't be of more assistance, but with shallow water Elegance corals coming into the hobby now it's difficult to say what lights an Elegance needs without seeing the coral.

[gsellers1245]

i would say with lots of flow id wait.

[Serioussnaps]

Originally posted by elegance coral
What lighting is it under now? If it is still very large after 2 months under the same lights I would try to mimic those lights. I have been told that they have just opened a new area for collecting Elegance corals. I Recently bought a shallow water coral that was not from Australia, so I think there may be something to this story. The coral you are talking about is probably a shallow water coral. Most of the deep water corals have been damaged to some extent by the time they reach our LFS so they aren't very large. If you could snap a couple of pics of the coral and post them here I would most likely be able to tell you if it is a shallow water coral or a deep water coral. A shallow water coral would not do well under the PC lighting. I'm sorry I can't be of more assistance, but with shallow water Elegance corals coming into the hobby now it's difficult to say what lights an Elegance needs without seeing the coral.

The lighting its under is kind of a skewed subject. It is under a 6 foot long tank that has a 400W and 250 W halide over it, however, the lights are about 3-4ft off the surface!!!!They are really up there. Not to mention the elegance is in a far corner of the tank, away from the point source of the MH bulb about 2.5-3 ft horizontally from it. Not to mention the tank is probably 24-30 inches deep. I wouldnt call it high light at all albeit obviously under PC's it will still be less light than it is getting now.

Flow was mentioned by another poster. The flow in my sump is weak sauce...intentionallly. Thats where it would be residing, definitely not in display.

I want to be very careful as this specimen is quite pricey. List price is 250, of course I wont pay this, but will likely be around 200 bucks for it so I dont want to go killing the sucker or having to buy more lighting that would be applicable to the tank I am about to set up.

[Serioussnaps]

Originally posted by elegance coral
What lighting is it under now? If it is still very large after 2 months under the same lights I would try to mimic those lights. I have been told that they have just opened a new area for collecting Elegance corals. I Recently bought a shallow water coral that was not from Australia, so I think there may be something to this story. The coral you are talking about is probably a shallow water coral. Most of the deep water corals have been damaged to some extent by the time they reach our LFS so they aren't very large. If you could snap a couple of pics of the coral and post them here I would most likely be able to tell you if it is a shallow water coral or a deep water coral. A shallow water coral would not do well under the PC lighting. I'm sorry I can't be of more assistance, but with shallow water Elegance corals coming into the hobby now it's difficult to say what lights an Elegance needs without seeing the coral.

Are you basically saying an elegance that is coming from a high light area in the wild can't adapt well to a lesser lit environment in captivity? and vice versa? I would be more personally concerned with taking a low light/ elegance from deeper water and placing it under more light. This would obviously cause expulsion of zoox but I am not so sure in the other scenario? Maybe you could clarify what you think would happen in either case?

I would go out on a limb and say the specimen I speak of is definitely not a deepwater, but I dont think it came from 4 feet of water either. If i had to guess my t5 lighting would be too much. The area in the tank it is in now is likely much less PAR/PUR than anywhere in the actual display of my system.

[jman77]

I feed it mysid and little pieces of silversides. My elegance is doing fine under the 130w CF bulbs,, it's actually grown 2 more mouths while i've had it ....and expands twice the size as when i got it. I'll post some pics tonight

I think we are blasting these corals with too much light and flow.

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by Serioussnaps
The lighting its under is kind of a skewed subject. It is under a 6 foot long tank that has a 400W and 250 W halide over it, however, the lights are about 3-4ft off the surface!!!!They are really up there. Not to mention the elegance is in a far corner of the tank, away from the point source of the MH bulb about 2.5-3 ft horizontally from it. Not to mention the tank is probably 24-30 inches deep. I wouldnt call it high light at all albeit obviously under PC's it will still be less light than it is getting now.

Flow was mentioned by another poster. The flow in my sump is weak sauce...intentionallly. Thats where it would be residing, definitely not in display.

I want to be very careful as this specimen is quite pricey. List price is 250, of course I wont pay this, but will likely be around 200 bucks for it so I dont want to go killing the sucker or having to buy more lighting that would be applicable to the tank I am about to set up.

In my area all you would see at those prices is a X-large Aussie Elegance. I wouldn't put an Aussie in either one of the tanks you are talking about. The flow is to strong in the sps tank and the lights would not be enough in the sump.

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by Serioussnaps
Are you basically saying an elegance that is coming from a high light area in the wild can't adapt well to a lesser lit environment in captivity? and vice versa? I would be more personally concerned with taking a low light/ elegance from deeper water and placing it under more light. This would obviously cause expulsion of zoox but I am not so sure in the other scenario? Maybe you could clarify what you think would happen in either case?

I would go out on a limb and say the specimen I speak of is definitely not a deepwater, but I dont think it came from 4 feet of water either. If i had to guess my t5 lighting would be too much. The area in the tank it is in now is likely much less PAR/PUR than anywhere in the actual display of my system.

I think you pretty much got it. From what I have seen and studied this is how I believe this works. There are different clads of zooxanthellae (algae). These different clads are better suited to different environments. In order for an Elegance coral to survive at greater depths they need to utilize a different clad of algae than the shallow water corals. This clad of algae is not well suited for a bright light environment. They quickly begin producing an excess amount of O2 under bright lights which causes severe damage to the coral. The shallow water corals are utilizing a different clad of algae. This clad has a much wider range of acceptable light than the clad of deep water corals. There is still a minimum and maximum light requirement for these shallow water algae. This is why I doubt that a shallow water coral will do well in your sump. In my tank I have 7 deep water corals and 1 shallow water coral. I have the lights set as strong, and on for as long, as I can without causing my deep water corals to swell up. I have the shallow water coral at the top of the tank where it is getting more light than any of the other corals. It has been in the tank for about 2 weeks and has gone from being almost transparent to a dark brown color. It was not showing signs of bleaching. It was just a healthy shallow water coral. My deep water corals have faded in color as I force them to adjust to brighter lights. I believe they are at there limit. The tentacles of the deep water corals that are more exposed to the light are almost transparent while the shaded tentacles of the same coral are a brown color. So these two corals of the same species in the same tank are acting differently to the same set of lights. The shallow water coral is showing signs of adapting to a dimmer environment while the deep water corals are showing signs of adapting to a brighter environment. Even though the shallow water coral is higher in the tank. I'm not sure how well the shallow water coral will do in this tank in the long term. I may have to move it to a brighter tank. I really would like to leave it in the tank with my deep water corals. Hypothetically, as the shallow water coral regulates the population of algae within its tissues, it could discharge small amounts of it's clad of algae into the water. Hypothetically again, the deep water corals if very close to their maximum light level could retain this shallow water algae. Hypothetically yet again, over time the deep water corals could become shallow water corals. Still hypothetically speaking, the opposite could take place where the shallow water coral could retain the clad from the deep water coral and I would end up with all deep water corals. This would hypothetically stink.
Did any of that make sense?

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by jman77
I feed it mysid and little pieces of silversides. My elegance is doing fine under the 130w CF bulbs,, it's actually grown 2 more mouths while i've had it ....and expands twice the size as when i got it. I'll post some pics tonight

I think we are blasting these corals with too much light and flow.

I'm looking forward to those pics and I couldn't agree with you more about the light and flow.

[znut Reefer]

I got in a sick elegance week before last. I have it in a 24 " tall tank. I'm using 3 250 MH 12K Reeflux and 2 160 VHO actinics. So far the elegance has not recovered any. It s seems to be getting worse. Any advice here?

I have tried feeding it, with no luck. It is not swollen just sunk in looking.

[Serioussnaps]

Originally posted by elegance coral
I think you pretty much got it. From what I have seen and studied this is how I believe this works. There are different clads of zooxanthellae (algae). These different clads are better suited to different environments. In order for an Elegance coral to survive at greater depths they need to utilize a different clad of algae than the shallow water corals. This clad of algae is not well suited for a bright light environment. They quickly begin producing an excess amount of O2 under bright lights which causes severe damage to the coral. The shallow water corals are utilizing a different clad of algae. This clad has a much wider range of acceptable light than the clad of deep water corals. There is still a minimum and maximum light requirement for these shallow water algae. This is why I doubt that a shallow water coral will do well in your sump. In my tank I have 7 deep water corals and 1 shallow water coral. I have the lights set as strong, and on for as long, as I can without causing my deep water corals to swell up. I have the shallow water coral at the top of the tank where it is getting more light than any of the other corals. It has been in the tank for about 2 weeks and has gone from being almost transparent to a dark brown color. It was not showing signs of bleaching. It was just a healthy shallow water coral. My deep water corals have faded in color as I force them to adjust to brighter lights. I believe they are at there limit. The tentacles of the deep water corals that are more exposed to the light are almost transparent while the shaded tentacles of the same coral are a brown color. So these two corals of the same species in the same tank are acting differently to the same set of lights. The shallow water coral is showing signs of adapting to a dimmer environment while the deep water corals are showing signs of adapting to a brighter environment. Even though the shallow water coral is higher in the tank. I'm not sure how well the shallow water coral will do in this tank in the long term. I may have to move it to a brighter tank. I really would like to leave it in the tank with my deep water corals. Hypothetically, as the shallow water coral regulates the population of algae within its tissues, it could discharge small amounts of it's clad of algae into the water. Hypothetically again, the deep water corals if very close to their maximum light level could retain this shallow water algae. Hypothetically yet again, over time the deep water corals could become shallow water corals. Still hypothetically speaking, the opposite could take place where the shallow water coral could retain the clad from the deep water coral and I would end up with all deep water corals. This would hypothetically stink.
Did any of that make sense?

Makes plenty of sense.

[Serioussnaps]

Originally posted by znut Reefer
I got in a sick elegance week before last. I have it in a 24 " tall tank. I'm using 3 250 MH 12K Reeflux and 2 160 VHO actinics. So far the elegance has not recovered any. It s seems to be getting worse. Any advice here?

I have tried feeding it, with no luck. It is not swollen just sunk in looking.

Znut...My first inclination is it needs to have less light. That is alot of light for an elegance, which is why I considered just putting one under PC lighting. This brings up another area of concern regarding these corals.....buying from an online vendor. This coral, unlike most others, I would have to see it in person and see it do well in another tank before I considered it(which I am doing) Another thing that tempts me is right now I am lucky enough to do this, however, the specimen is very costly. Ordering an elegance from an online vendor seems very risky particularly when most will sell you a basically dead specimen(it may be alive, but many are doomed).

[znut Reefer]

I do have a refug I can try to move the elegance to tomorrow evening and see if it will recover.

Yes, I bought it from an online vendor and was told it had been doing very well for close to 2 mos. Thats why I took the chance and bought it. I could tell the day I received it, it was not healthy. .

I did contact the vendor since I had a seven day guarantee and I received a credit for the elegance. I don't plan to buy another again online.

I'll post here any good or bad news on the elegance after I move it tomorrow.

[elegance coral]

Buying an Elegance from an online vendor is taking a huge risk. Unfortunately these vendors don't know what the problem is with these corals so they expose them to lights that are to bright. They can be damaged so quickly that the pic they show on their web sight may not look anything like the coral you receive. The symptoms of this light exposure occur in stages. A healthy deep water Elegance will swell up and withdraw its tentacles when exposed to bright light. The tissue will be damaged by this exposure causing the coral to withdraw. After the coral begins to withdraw there is a stage where only the area between the mouths and tentacles will swell. When the damage gets severe enough the coral stops swelling up and remains withdrawn. When they reach this stage they are in critical condition. Infection can quickly take over the coral causing its death. Iodine dips seem to really be helping to fight off these infections. They can survive even after such an exposure if they are kept from these bright light environments. My avatar was once completely withdrawn into its skeleton. It has been a long road to recovery and it still has a ways to go, but it is getting much better.

[znut Reefer]

Ok so should I try an iodine dip to see if it helps? Thanks for the reply.

Also, I have never dipped an elegance, so can you tell me what ratio to use for the dips. And how often.

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by znut Reefer
Ok so should I try an iodine dip to see if it helps? Thanks for the reply.

Also, I have never dipped an elegance, so can you tell me what ratio to use for the dips. And how often.

I have seen very good results with iodine dips. It seems to help very ill Elegance corals even when there isn't any obvious signs of infection. I have no Idea why though. Maybe its like neosporin helping a cut heal faster even when its not infected. There are several iodine based products on the market. I would just fallow the directions on the product you buy. I would not dip the coral often. If it looks real bad I would dip it. I wouldn't dip it again unless it took a turn for the worse.