Doxicycline/elegance corals

[md14fish]

I recently purchased an elegance coral that appeared to be a fine specimen at time of purchase. After one week, it began to show the usual signs of decline so often reported the last couple of years. Has anyone reported success with the doxicycline treatment recommended by Sprung ? This is the 5th elegance I have tried in the last two years all coming down with the same symptoms and finally death within a month. All my other corals are fine. Has anyone purchased these within the last two years
and maintained them with success.

 

[EricHugo]

Hi md14fish:

I purchased one within the past two years and it is doing fine. No pre or post purchase treatment.

What are the signs (not symptoms - symptoms are things a patient can report)? Have they all come from the same source? What color were they? What did the skeleton look like - free-living or attached? What's your tank like? Have you tried anything different each time, or made any observations about them, or have you just put them in the tank and watched them die wondering why? I need more information to be able to help.

 

[gregt]

Pardon me for just a moment Eric while I say


md14fish,

[welcome]

 

[md14fish]

Elegance corals

Elegance corals

Hello Eric,

Thanks for the reply. All specimens purchased including the last, appeared to be healthy. Wide open,brilliant coloration(metallic green,with either pink,blue or purple tips). After a one to two week period, specimens have begun to not open fully. As time progresses tentacles shrink and swell. A film seems to slough from parts of the specimen. Eventually the body seperates from the skeleton and tissue recession progresses until the specimen dies. This all takes place in approximately 30 days from the first symptoms. Water parameters are as follows:

pH - 8.2, alk 3.5. ca 420,nitrate <10, SG- 1.026,temp.77

 

[md14fish]

Elegance coral and antibiotic use

Elegance coral and antibiotic use

Just a follow up on Sprungs recommendations. Tried it and didn't help. Coral became infected with a brown jelly in third day of treatment. Died one week later.

 

[EricHugo]

Thanks for the update and I apologize for not having responded to the previosu thread. I have been out of the country. Also, sorry to hear of the loss. Its so hard to say how corals will respond to various treatments, and antibiotics, I think, are likely to be quite stressful to the coral as they willa alter the chemical and biological profile of the surface microlayer and therefore impact the coral's metabolsim, if not by direct toxicity of the drug itself. This is why, among other reasons, I strongly urge other avenues prior to any experiemntal drug treatment of aquarium corals. Of the antibiotics I feel hold the most promise with some amount of real trials and evidence of effectiveness and low toxicity are tetracycline, erthyromycin, and gentamycin. However, I don;t advise use of those either unless there is good reason to believe they are needed and it is done under carefully thought out protocol.

 

[md14fish]

elegance corals

elegance corals

Thanks for your advise. Would you advise another purchase of this coral ? I have no problem with other corals in my reef -

I have the following for over a year and have fragged many-

hammer, frogspawn, sarcophyton elegans, galaxia, candycane,xenia, assorted buttons and others. A friend suggested I ask the dealer to feed an elegance before purchase he said the tenticles should be "sticky" anther words hold prey and pull it in. I noticed the last specimen didn't do this.

 

[EricHugo]

That's a good indication in some anemones, although its my impression that not all elegance are sticky" from nematocysts. The rationale here is that nematocysts are metabolically costly toproduce and maintain, so if the coralis healthy, then it should be well armed. However, stress, shipping, acclimation, disease, starvation, lack of proper conditions, etc., could all result in a non-"sticky" elegance and wouldn;t mean much in terms of health. Alternately, a sticky one could die in a heartbeat. I don;t know what to tell you on the repurchase of them. they are not very ecologically friendly corals to be collected, especially in the large numbers they are. They used to be easy to keep, now they aren;t...and they aren;t around as much anymore either.

I can usually tell how one will do by looking at it, but if you aren't sure about it, or aren't a "coral whisperer", this may not be a very good idea. Also, the environments they are collected in are very different, and not knowing which one they came from could do one in all by itself. So, based on all this, what to do? Probably avoid it unless you have a compelling and obvious reason to suspect it is indeed healthy.