Elegance Coral - new & my only coral - is something wrong??

Well Karen this is something that I did not do 20 years ago and hope that you do now is to dip your coral and Qt your fish before introduce to your display tank.
 
lionfish300 - I had asked my husband about dipping and he said he's read contradicting reports about 'dipping corals' as a practice.

Ironically, we were supposed to set up a QT tank, however the primary driver behind that is we remember from the 'old days' our unhappiness at dosing the tank with all sorts of stuff to 'cure' one fish of an issue.

I do feel it is WHEN, not IF, that will we introduce a problem into our main tank if we do not establish a QT tank and put all new acquisitions in that tank first before ever introducing them to the primary tank. Up until this week, the only fish/item we've had in the tank for 9 or 10 weeks has been the mated percula pair.

I'll bring up the QT tank subject again. Guess it's time to look as well at the pros and cons of 'dipping' corals. Thx
 
I have very little trouble with most corals. Elegance is the exception. Whether its my clowns deciding it must be an anemone or my otherwise well behaved Angels taking an exploratory nip, I always ended up losing it. Don't bother anymore.
 
Updated pic of Elegance coral 3 months later - it looks happy to me??? (SO FAR!)

I wish the lights had been fully up as it looks washed out color-wise but there has been a 'thunderstorm' going on with the lights that doesn't appear to want to stop. Also can't wait to get a Tang in the tank at some point to eat some of the algae
 

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Two Elegance Corals!

You have done a fine job with that coral - Congratulations!!!

As for a tang - look at the bristletooths. I have a Tomini in my 120. It is fat and happy. It eats mostly NLS pellets or Rod's Original but about weekly I'll put some Nori in there and it tears it to pieces in all of 5 minutes.
 
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Only one, which will be our...showpiece tang - a White Tail Bristletooth Tang. We added him last night along with a Blue Throat Trigger. My gosh they are both beautiful.

We had yellow tangs (I think we had 2..lol) before along with a Naso Tang (that's what we called it WAY BACK WHEN) in a 75 gallon tank when we had no clue (over 15+ yrs ago) that they were somewhat (fish only tank) and we definitely were fools that got blessed as none of them fought.

That brings our total livestock to: 1 - Mandarin, 1 -Randall's Goby and his 1 Pistol shrimp, 2 skunk cleaner shrimp, 1 red shrimp we never get to see, 1 Melanurus Wrasse, 2 Mated Percula clows, 4 fire fish, 1 electric blue knee hermit crab (LARGE), and now 1 White Tail Bristletooth tang, 1 Blue throated trigger.

We tried to keep all prior acquisitions to fish that would not grow more than 3 to 4 inches so we could handle the bio-load of the Tang. The Blue Throat Trigger was a surprise purchase...we REALLY wanted to put a SMALL yellow tang (we need some color) along with the 4"...maybe 5" Bristletooth tang but the main guy at LFS who manages all the fish inventory and ordering questioned us on this and suggested that maybe the Bristletooth in our size tank should be our only tang. We could fit another but chances of aggression...probably from the yellow...could be eliminated.

Thinking it through, we realized with mixed reef, our "color" should come more from the corals and not so much from the fish (we nixed idea of getting a Purple Tang long ago as we fell in love with the Bristletooth).

I have to say, the blue throat trigger was subtle at LFS - their lighting didn't do him justice. We have been glued near the aquarium watching both new additions. Our previously tight knit group of fish citizens before the addition are a little shook up. I hope things settle down. The firefish are in hiding...luckily they are all a good size
 
Two Elegance Corals!

You have done a fine job with that coral - Congratulations!!!

As for a tang - look at the bristletooths. I have a Tomini in my 120. It is fat and happy. It eats mostly NLS pellets or Rod's Original but about weekly I'll put some Nori in there and it tears it to pieces in all of 5 minutes.

Thank you!

It's ironic you suggested the bristletooths....you can see my prior post about our addition of a white tailed bristletooth tang last night.

PS: Is it normal for a coral (the Elegance) to have an oral disk that is so very big? I figure it is or y'all would have said something...lol
 
Dang, how many posts do I have to get to to finally get 'edit' capabilities..lol....so many typos in prior post!

many.

so, so many. :)

There was a window opened not long ago to edit posts/threads because of the photobucket conundrum but that is the rare exception. Editing is usually a pre-post proposition.

Good work with the elegance. Envy has gripped me.
 
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many.

so, so many. :)

There was a window opened not long ago to edit posts/threads because of the photobucket conundrum but that is the rare exception. Editing is usually a pre-post proposition.

LOL @ on the spot. Made me chuckle. I will consider using the preview option in the future ;)
 
Additional note: Our tank, while not super large is 6 ft long. We knew we'd want to put a tang in it at some point and wanted to give him/her as much length to swim as we could. Of course, 2 months after getting it, we wished we had gotten the 150 gallon tank..lol
 
Your Elegance looks perfectly normal and healthy to me. Mine now has at least 15 or 20 separate mouths, up form maybe 2 when we bought it about 3 years ago. It has also grown from ~3" to over 12.

FIoscEEl.jpg


On a different note - You will need to take special care to ensure that your mandarin has enough food. They are obligate constant eaters - pods are their preferred food source. Although some can be trained to eat prepared foods, it is not a substitute for live pods. Sadly, your wrasse is a direct competitor that will easily win the "see who can eat the most pods" contest.

A large refugium with ample liverock and/or cheato for pods to breed will quickly become a necessity.
 
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Your Elegance looks perfectly normal and healthy to me. Mine now has at least 15 or 20 separate mouths, up form maybe 2 when we bought it about 3 years ago. It has also grown from ~3" to over 12.

FIoscEEl.jpg


Yours is so gorgeous! That has grown quite quickly in my opinion. Glad to have confirmation from several kind people, including yourself that the coral is healthy and happy right now.
 
On a different note - You will need to take special care to ensure that your mandarin has enough food. They are obligate constant eaters - pods are their preferred food source. Although some can be trained to eat prepared foods, it is not a substitute for live pods. Sadly, your wrasse is a direct competitor that will easily win the "see who can eat the most pods" contest.

A large refugium with ample liverock and/or cheato for pods to breed will quickly become a necessity.

Thankfully we had a mandarin before (WAY BACK WHEN) but in those days we had no refugium, didn't know about pods but with a lion fish in the tank we fed live brine, etc.. and we got lucky.

With this tank, I forgot to mention we have about a 30 gallon or more refugium. We waited for some cheato we put in to get established and got inundated at first. We had pods galore (like a blizzard).

We have had to do some siphoning so the population is a bit depleted but we keep an eye on his eating and body size. Our wrasse is a PIG and eats so many pellets and mysis, that for the most part he doesn't eat as many pods as he could (simply because he is full).

We actually may go get another ball of cheato to help re-amp up pod population. We brought live brine shrimp last night, which the mandarin thankfully ate the last time we bought some...to ensure he has extra to eat for a few days.

I've bought the 'pods in a bottle' before too..but wow, they are expensive!
 
If your tank is clean and stable enough to keep an elegance coral for three months and have it thrive, you would be fine adding your tang. Just make sure you add a tang suitable for your tank size.

Edited to add that the coral is beautiful
 
Your Elegance looks perfectly normal and healthy to me. Mine now has at least 15 or 20 separate mouths, up form maybe 2 when we bought it about 3 years ago. It has also grown from ~3" to over 12.

FIoscEEl.jpg


On a different note - You will need to take special care to ensure that your mandarin has enough food. They are obligate constant eaters - pods are their preferred food source. Although some can be trained to eat prepared foods, it is not a substitute for live pods. Sadly, your wrasse is a direct competitor that will easily win the "see who can eat the most pods" contest.

A large refugium with ample liverock and/or cheato for pods to breed will quickly become a necessity.



That is a gorgeous elegance. Congrats.
 
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