ah, thanks for mentioning that, I totally missed the article
It's sad to see the species with such dire survival rates, and such high collection quotas. I will freely admit that when I purchased the elegance, I was unaware of the threat to it, and its poor survival rates. I had just just read several aquarium books (delbeek and sprung, calfo etc), and the general gist was that 'collection from aquarium trade is bad, but isn't nearly as bad as other threats'. Seems like that blanket statement isn't enough anymore, we need to be looking at the species and the numbers.
If what Eric suggested about over-collection in indonesia is true, then we still don't have a really proper idea what environment these corals prefer/flourish in. I hope somebody can do a similar study by observing wild elegance in Australia.
I know the disease for elegance is a huge issue, but its a shame that the article didn't really get into other elegance issues, like what their natural diet consists of or what water parameters they are sensitive to, optimal feeding schedules etc...
According to what Eric said, my elegance is safe from ECS for now. But many people here mentioned that a coral will spontaneously develop ECS symptoms a year after collection. Seems to contradict Erics findings, unless a sick elegance was added to the system. Perhaps many of these corals that die after living for a while are not ECS (if there truly IS an ECS
, but simply a sign that the aquarium isn't matching the natural environment well enough to ensure long term survival?
"This seems unlikely because no long-term captive elegance corals have been reported to contract ECS, and ECS generally occurs very soon (within days to weeks) after placement into an aquarium."
Also, I recall months ago reading things like "eric bornerman has found a protazoan responsible for ECS", but in the article it seems like he wasn't really able to pin the death onto anything definitively.
Elegance Coral, what did you think of the article?
The plot thickens!