Elegance Coral theory

[DrDNA]

elegance coral - your inbox is full

[elegance coral]

CRAP! I'll clean it out right now. Sorry about that.

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by John Kelly
Earlier in the thread, I was trying to point to the possibility of a "bleaching" stage that could occur if these corals were being placed under lighting that was too intense. It appears that two of the three that you bought are bleached or at least lacking a good deal of zooxanthellae. The one that still contains some zooxanthellae was probably on it's way to being bleached. Luckily, it looks like the amount of light that they were previously under wasn't enough to quickly damage them. Depending on the intensity of light that the corals are initially placed under, oxidative stress due to way too much light can cause quick damage and an internal sunburn, which would kill the coral a lot faster and also have the potential to cause internal infection, OR if the lighting was still too intense, but not intense enough to quickly fry the coral, the light can cause slow damage which will eventually kill the coral over a longer period of time. With a slower form of oxidative stress, there is usually a bleaching stage where the coral loses it's zooxanthellae first before it forever remains retracted and dies. Less intense lighting and manual feeding of the corals becomes critical when they are bleached.

As your research moves forward, try to see if there is a slight difference in the coloration of the fluorescent proteins between Elegance that are more sensitive to light and less sensitive. The more sensitive corals may contain a little more of a yellowish-green colored protein where the less sensitive corals may have a little more of a blueish-green colored protein. It would be nice if a subtle but visible difference could be established between shallow and deep water Elegance (ie. purple tips vs. pink tips).

My camera sucks! One of the corals is definitely bleached. It has been left with only its photosynthetic pigments visible. The other two are very dark brown. The photosynthetic pigments are different colors in the two corals though. What I find a little odd is that of these three corals the bleached one seems to be recovering the fastest. I agree with you 100% on the whole bleaching thing. The only difference I have noticed is that sometimes they bleach and sometimes they don't. It doesn't matter if it is a rapid and drastic exposure that causes the damage or if it is a prolonged exposure, like a light cycle that is set a little to long. Some of these corals discharge their algae and others don't. They all seem to experience the same tissue damage though. In the other corals I have worked with (none as extensively as Elegance corals) they seem to handle light exposure exactly as you describe it. I don't know why some of these Elegance corals don't discharge their algae when exposed to damaging light. I believe this is the reason for the confusion around the Elegance coral sickness. If all of them were bleaching everyone would know it is a lighting issue.

I have been trying to find some characteristic that we could use to differentiate between the sensitive and less sensitive corals. I have been unable to come up with anything that works in all cases. The only thing that seems to be reliable is if the coral polyp is expanded several times the size of the skeleton. Like 4 or 5 times the size, and has a pale or semitransparent appearance, it is a shallow water coral and has a very wide range of light it can adapt to without damage. Other than that there doesn't seem to be anything that can help us. There seem to be other corals that utilize the same clad of algae as the coral I just described but have a much darker appearance. I would assume that they came from a slightly deeper or more shaded area. Allot of people put quite a bit of emphasis on the color of the tips of the corals tentacles. I have fried them all. This doesn't seem to have any bearing on the corals survivability.
Most other corals dont have the ability to survive in the drastically different environments that Elegance corals can. I have read articles that put these corals living from just a few feet below the low tide line down to 114ft. Most other corals have a much smaller area they can survive in. I believe that there success can be contributed to the use of different clads of algae. I don't believe that the same clad of algae can survive at both ends of the Elegance corals range. This makes it hard on us when we try to find the correct environment to place our Elegance in.

[gsellers1245]

something came to mind.....what about the ones coming from very muddy nutrient rich water. Ive seen a yellow elegance that was found completely buried in mud. Would this be a possible bleacher? I think that the bleaching just goes back to where the specimen was collected the depth the environment as well as the water quality

[elegance coral]

week 1

week 2

week 1

week 2


week 1

week 2



It is a slow process and my camera stinks, but I don't think this is bad for 1 week. It's a huge improvement over day one.

[DrDNA]

John suggested above that perhaps we should look for different colors of fluorescent proteins in a more light-tolerant elegance and I think there is definitely merit to that. I have only seen a couple australian elegance corals in person, but the two I have seen were most definitely a different color, more of a blue-green (like a teal) than the yellowish-lime green that many of the indo's are that I have seen at the LFS out here.

Which raises another question... will an indonesian deeper-water elegance change over time to a more blue-green appearance when acclimated to higher light?

Not to digress either, but I really hope the Australian government is monitoring the rate of collection of these new "aussie" corals so that we don't end up in the same boat with aussie corals in a few years.

[zeppelin]

Here is another color morph of the aussie elegance. This is a frag I cut about 3 weeks ago. Still going strong in my display. Its a light blue with purple tips. Seems to have recovered remarkably well, and is already growing another mouth.

[gsellers1245]

looks amazing

[elegance coral]

There are many different shades of green found in Elegance corals. Like John Kelly pointed out, it ranges from almost yellow to the other end of the color, an almost blue color. It doesn't seem to matter if they came from Australia or the Indo Pacific. I believe that this color is genetic. I don't believe we can change a yellow Elegance to a blue Elegance. They can change the number of pigments causing a drastic change in appearance, but not the color itself.
The Aussie government is keeping a very close eye on this. They are only allowing a limited number of corals to be collected. This is one of the reasons that Aussie corals are so expensive. They will shut this down long before there is any real damage to the reef.
Zeppelin, that's a very nice Elegance by the way.

[elegance coral]

There seems to be some very experienced and knowledgeable people tagging along with this thread. I would like to pick your brains if I could. I purposely purchased a wide range of corals to add to the tank with my Elegance corals. There are many different colors of shrooms, a red open brain, a clam, GSP, a couple of SPS frags, and others. My hopes were to add different clads of algae into the tank. If I am correct, that the whole problem with Elegance corals boils down to the clad of algae in its tissues, maybe they could pick up a different clad of algae from one of these other corals that would be better suited to aquarium life. This has not happened. About a month ago I got a shallow water Elegance coral. It has drastically changed colors in this time. It is now a much darker brown then when I got it. I have noticed two of the first corals I got in this study changing recently as well. Over about the past two weeks these two corals have started to become splotchy. Darker brown areas are starting to appear around the mouths and on the oral disk. These corals have been under the same light for over 6 months. They have been a pale color until now. Do you think it is possible that these two corals are picking up algae discharged by the shallow water coral?

[Serioussnaps]

Originally posted by elegance coral
There seems to be some very experienced and knowledgeable people tagging along with this thread. I would like to pick your brains if I could. I purposely purchased a wide range of corals to add to the tank with my Elegance corals. There are many different colors of shrooms, a red open brain, a clam, GSP, a couple of SPS frags, and others. My hopes were to add different clads of algae into the tank. If I am correct, that the whole problem with Elegance corals boils down to the clad of algae in its tissues, maybe they could pick up a different clad of algae from one of these other corals that would be better suited to aquarium life. This has not happened. About a month ago I got a shallow water Elegance coral. It has drastically changed colors in this time. It is now a much darker brown then when I got it. I have noticed two of the first corals I got in this study changing recently as well. Over about the past two weeks these two corals have started to become splotchy. Darker brown areas are starting to appear around the mouths and on the oral disk. These corals have been under the same light for over 6 months. They have been a pale color until now. Do you think it is possible that these two corals are picking up algae discharged by the shallow water coral?

This would be very interesting. Let me say that this is way out of my league, but it doesn't seem feasible, but keep in mind that it is out of my league. I just don't see an elegance picking up zoox from a clam, gsp or an acropora. How would this occurr? Expulsion into the water column?

[DrDNA]

I have no idea if a coral can pick up zooxanthellae from the water column or if they are all vertically transmitted from parent to offspring in the egg/larvae somehow. However, in James Fatheree's newer Tridacnids book, I recall him stating in there that the clam farms add zooxanthellae cultures to the water and it is picked up and incorporated into the tissues of juvenile clams. Supposedly, the clams also expel excess zooxanthellae which is still live and may or may not get "picked up" by other clams or species.
So, I would think it is theoretically possible...
I guess one way to check is to expose a bleached elegance to a culture of zooxanthellae and then later determine if that same strain is incorporated into its tissues...

[elegance coral]

It has been a theory for a long time that one of the benefits to bleaching is that it frees up space for a clad of algae that is better suited to the new environment. I don't know if there has been any recent research proving or disproving this theory. It makes allot of sense to me though.
Planulae, or larvae that have been fertilized and held within the coral until they reach a level of development sufficient to be discharged, can carry algae retained from the parent. I don't believe eggs and sperm released into the water and then fertilized would have algae before fertilization. If this is true, the larvae would have to be getting the algae from the water. Just as larval clams do. If larvae are capable of retaining algae from the water, and given the great benefit involved, I would think the adult would have this ability as well. Corals are constantly regulating the population of algae within their tissues. The algae multiply and the coral discharges them. This cycle continues for the life of the coral. Nature is designed very well. It would be a large flaw in this design if a coral is in need of a particular clad of algae, this algae is drifting in the water all around it, but the coral is simply unable to utilize it and dies. I would think the coral must have the ability to retain this algae. Serioussnaps may have a point though. They believe that different clads of algae may be species specific. There are clads of algae that have only been found in one particular species of coral. Having many different species in the tank with my Elegance corals has been of no use, that I can tell. I do hope things change having this new Elegance in the tank.

[John Kelly]

I have dealt with several dozen completely bleached Goniopora over the last couple of years and the only place they could have obtained zooxanthellae from was the water column. Some of them have taken 3-4 months to even start regaining zooxanthellae while others have taken much less time. They all seem to be just as sensitive to light as they were previously. Once they get a zooxanthellae "seed", usually near the base of a tentacle, it begins to reproduce within the tissue and spreads from that area into other polyps nearby. I was kind of hoping that some of them might retain a different species of zooxanthellae which would be less light sensitive, but I don't think any of them did. I would guess that the fluorescent proteins play some sort of a role in the types of zooxanthellae a coral can host. That's why I previously suggested paying attention to the fluorescent coloration of the coral in relation to the light sensitivity of the zooxanthellae it was hosting. I've noticed subtle differences between similar looking species of Goniopora.

Also, IME, the amount of food that a coral receives when it is bleached becomes a determining factor on how quickly it regains zooxanthellae. Feeding them more, like once or twice a day, seems to speed up the process. Although, if the lighting is too bright for the coral to host zoox in the first place, then increasing the food supply doesn't help. They need less light or they will remain bleached.

[gsellers1245]

i have to say since i have a mixed reef i have the best algae of all types...montipora, acropora, mixed shrooms and ricordia, sinularia leather, maxima and derasa clam, claustrea colony, multiple zoos and paly's, gsp's, stylophora and birdnest colonies. I think i have the best of lost of zoox. And i dont think its interchangable. I beleive it is from the hosted zoox inside the elegance. I'm no scientist but i have been reading up and tagging along so i can kinda see the theories here so im gonna say im guessing

[jman77]

updated pic of mine

[dla2000]

I just wanted to share my tank with yaw.

The Tank
20H
15lb of Ocean Direct Caribbean Live Sand.
5+ lbs of live rock
100w Heater
Bio-Wheel 200 Filter
CPR Skimmer w/ surface skimmer
CoolWorks Iceprob Chiller w/controller housed on the bio-wheel filter. (To help keep the temp. under 80)

Lights
72w pc
50/50 on for about 5 hours
Actinic on for 12 hours
Lebos Lunar Tracker w/ 1 moonlight

27w dual actinic on for 12 hours



As you can see the 72w pc lights are 15 1/2" above the tank.


The only thing That I'm going to keep in this tank with an elegance coral is my 8 Polyp Dendro (5 are little babies).

[dla2000]

I have read this thread and pm elegance coral for advice on my 10 gallon tank that I had set up just for an elegance coral. The 10 gallon tank was a temporary thing, so now I have a 20 gallon. Any way, everything I had on the 10 gallon tank I just transfer it to the 20H except the skimmer and the bio-wheel.

Everything in the tank was great, so I went to the pet store and BAM they had a very healthy elegance coral.

Elegance Coral told me what to look for. I put the coral in my tank and it did good, well, as far as I know because I was always at work. Any way one weekend that I was off I seen some brown stuff coming out off the one of the mouth in the middle off the coral, so I pm elegance coral and he explained to me what it was and what to do. We I had no way of moving my lights up off the tank so I place some door screen over the lights and it stop.

Then one day I turned on the lights in the room that the tank was in and the elegance coral started puffing up really bad. I really don't know how long this was going on, but at the end off the elegance coral life, the flesh part of the coral in the middle was coming a part.

I had no crabs or fish in the tank.

So know from what I seen and learned from my first elegance coral, I set up the 20 gallon tank with the light so high, but I can bring the light lower to the tank.

[jman77]

"I was off I seen some brown stuff coming out off the one of the mouth in the middle off the coral"

The brown stuff could have been waste that the coral was expelling, this is a normal thing for corals to do, but it is very noticeable with LPS corals. Mine does it often, as well as contract to the point that i think it's about to die. Again this is all normal, and no need to freak over it.

I'm just giving my advice, if you feel more comfortable with high lights, have them high... just don't keep them there good luck with the new elegance and feel free to pm me if you have any questions

[John Kelly]

Originally posted by jman77
"I was off I seen some brown stuff coming out off the one of the mouth in the middle off the coral"

The brown stuff could have been waste that the coral was expelling...

More likely it was zooxanthellae being expelled.


LPS that open up large, have large skeletons, lots of tissue, sensitive to a number of variables (lighting, water flow, feeding, chemistry stability,handling, placement, etc..),,,
these types of corals DO NOT BELONG in nano sized tanks. It can be done, but it takes a lot of knowledge and experience to do it skillfully. Most people just rely on "luck" and only very few get lucky for very long. Go post a thread in various nano tank forums asking for proof (photographs) from people who have kept these types of corals alive for more than a year in their small tanks. You'll get none to barely any.

A 55g or 75g is a decent starting point. The chemistry is easier to keep stable, the flow is easier to control, there is a greater range of water depth to work with, there is the potential for more planktonic food in the water column, filtration is usually better, there's less drastic specific gravity swing when adding top-off water or during water changes; and I'm sure theres more benefits.

This post isn't directed at anyone who already has an Elegance or Goniopora or other difficult to keep LPS. It is directed at those who don't, and who want to "try" their "luck" with one of these corals. The first thing you NEED is a larger sized tank.

[dla2000]

Here's something about the collection of elegance corals.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2/feature2.htm

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by John Kelly
More likely it was zooxanthellae being expelled.


LPS that open up large, have large skeletons, lots of tissue, sensitive to a number of variables (lighting, water flow, feeding, chemistry stability,handling, placement, etc..),,,
these types of corals DO NOT BELONG in nano sized tanks. It can be done, but it takes a lot of knowledge and experience to do it skillfully. Most people just rely on "luck" and only very few get lucky for very long. Go post a thread in various nano tank forums asking for proof (photographs) from people who have kept these types of corals alive for more than a year in their small tanks. You'll get none to barely any.

A 55g or 75g is a decent starting point. The chemistry is easier to keep stable, the flow is easier to control, there is a greater range of water depth to work with, there is the potential for more planktonic food in the water column, filtration is usually better, there's less drastic specific gravity swing when adding top-off water or during water changes; and I'm sure theres more benefits.

This post isn't directed at anyone who already has an Elegance or Goniopora or other difficult to keep LPS. It is directed at those who don't, and who want to "try" their "luck" with one of these corals. The first thing you NEED is a larger sized tank.

I have to agree with John, again. There is no doubt in my mind that this coral was discharging zooxanthellae. I didn't have them send me a sample to examine under my microscope, but I have seen this enough to feel confident of what I was looking at. Dia2000 sent me a pic of this discharge. I suggested the lighting be reduced slightly and the coral stopped discharging it's algae. I believe the downfall of this coral was the room lights that would be turned on at night. The most dangerous time for these corals is late in the day. O2 levels climb as the day goes on. They need the down time at night with NO photosynthesis to reduce this O2 buildup and prepare for the fallowing days light cycle. The tank lights would go off in time to keep the coral from swelling. Unfortunately the room lights would come on and photosynthesis would continue. As the O2 level continued to climb the coral would begin to swell causing tissue damage. I believe that this case with Dia2000's Elegance demonstrates what I have been trying to say about how incredibly sensitive these corals can be to light.
The confusing part about Elegance coral husbandry is that we can not place them all in one category. They are all the same species, however their requirements may vary widely. With other corals like open brains, we know that good quality low level light will keep them all healthy. (at least all of them I have seen) The same can not be said about Elegance corals. There are individuals that can be perfectly healthy under very intense lighting. I have one of these corals myself. The vast majority of the corals coming into the hobby today can not withstand this light. We can not take our experience with one individual Elegance and use it as a guide for Elegance coral care in general. I wish it was that simple, but it simply isn't. When speaking of the species as a whole it can be said that they will survive in a very wide range of lighting, from very dim light to light that would be considered bright even for SPS corals. That's not to say that every individual has the ability to adapt to these extremes. Proper Elegance coral care has to be viewed on an individual basis. One Elegance coral may have very different requirements than the next.

[dla2000]

Originally posted by John Kelly
More likely it was zooxanthellae being expelled.


LPS that open up large, have large skeletons, lots of tissue, sensitive to a number of variables (lighting, water flow, feeding, chemistry stability,handling, placement, etc..),,,
these types of corals DO NOT BELONG in nano sized tanks. It can be done, but it takes a lot of knowledge and experience to do it skillfully. Most people just rely on "luck" and only very few get lucky for very long. Go post a thread in various nano tank forums asking for proof (photographs) from people who have kept these types of corals alive for more than a year in their small tanks. You'll get none to barely any.

A 55g or 75g is a decent starting point. The chemistry is easier to keep stable, the flow is easier to control, there is a greater range of water depth to work with, there is the potential for more planktonic food in the water column, filtration is usually better, there's less drastic specific gravity swing when adding top-off water or during water changes; and I'm sure theres more benefits.

This post isn't directed at anyone who already has an Elegance or Goniopora or other difficult to keep LPS. It is directed at those who don't, and who want to "try" their "luck" with one of these corals. The first thing you NEED is a larger sized tank.

I undstand about big tanks are better, but a 55 or 75g tank with just one elegance coral in it would look ? not right.

Now, if I do get one to grow into a 75g tank that would be great.

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by dla2000
Here's something about the collection of elegance corals.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2/feature2.htm

Thanks for the link. I have read this article several times. While I don't agree with everything that is said in the article I believe There are important things we can learn from it. Borenman states that these corals were found as deep as 114 ft. It is amazing that these corals are able to exist in such a light deprived environment. This alone should tell us that these corals would have issues acclimating to bright lights. He describes the drastically different environments these corals can be found in. This is one of the reasons I don't believe it is a good idea to try and mimic their natural environment in a closed system. How would you know which environment to mimic? These corals should be provided with the same quality water you would provide any other coral. An adult Elegance has very little control over where it lives. Other corals like SPS corals can grow rapidly in the direction that best suites it needs. Anemones can simply up and move if they don't like where they are. Elegance corals don't have this luxury. When a young Elegance coral is broken free from the solid surface it is growing on, it is largely at the mercy of the current to take it to where it will spend the rest of it's life. Once it is there it has two choices, survive or die. Just because an Elegance may be able to survive in this environment doesn't mean that this is the best possible environment for an Elegance.
Borenman shows two pics of corals swelling up and withdrawing their tentacles. He explains that this reaction is caused by two different things. How does he know this? There is no mention of a scientific experiment showing this. It is simply a guess, and a wrong one at that. The corals in the two pics are suffering from the same environmental influences I have been talking about in this thread for the past 3 months.
There is also mention of these corals having problems with the parasitic Gal Crab. These crabs infest many LPS's. In all the Elegance corals I have studied I have only found one gal crab. The crab was removed and the Elegance is still healthy today. These crabs have nothing to do with "the problem" we are having with these corals.

[elegance coral]

Originally posted by jman77
"I was off I seen some brown stuff coming out off the one of the mouth in the middle off the coral"

The brown stuff could have been waste that the coral was expelling, this is a normal thing for corals to do, but it is very noticeable with LPS corals. Mine does it often, as well as contract to the point that i think it's about to die. Again this is all normal, and no need to freak over it.

I'm just giving my advice, if you feel more comfortable with high lights, have them high... just don't keep them there good luck with the new elegance and feel free to pm me if you have any questions

I truly hate to disagree with anyone in this thread, however I feel it's important to clarify a few things here. It is normal for an Elegance to expand and contract. It will contract on a regular basis at night when the lights go out. It's expansion may very from day to day or even through out the course of the day. It is not normal for a healthy Elegance coral to contract to the point that you think its going to die. This is a sign that something is not right with the coral. This combined with the fact that this coral is discharging brown stuff often, would lead me to believe this coral is receiving to much light or the photo period is to long. I originally wasn't going to reply to this post, because I didn't want to offend anyone, but I feel its important for people reading this thread to understand that it's not normal for their Elegance to contract this drastically or to continually discharge large amounts of brown stuff.