Elegance Coral theory

[jman77]

" 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."

Why is it not normal, all my LPS's contract drasicaly, as do my BTA's from time to time, as do my goniporas, Xenia's. I'm sorry elegancecoral I've been reefing for many years and this is something i've always seen. It is normal

As far as discharging waste, this is totally relative to how much light and food you give the corals. If you have your coral under a light that puts out a lot of light and/or feed it, it will expel waste often, if you have it under low par light and don't feed, you will probably never see it. You shouldn't make such broad statements.

 

[John Kelly]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10469759#post10469759 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jman77
Why is it not normal, ..............

You shouldn't make such broad statements.

Why debate it?

These aren't "broad" statements about all LPS. In fact, they are very narrow ones in reference to a specific behavior of a single species of LPS. These are the kinds of observations that noobies and armchair "reef" scientists don't bother taking a closer look at because they don't think they matter.

 

[jman77]

John,

I don't want these post to come across as confrontational, and I have a lot of respect for what you have done with the gonipora's.

I don't consider myself a "noobie or a armchair "reef" scientists" if that what you were implying by your statement. I debate it because I've experienced otherwise. Can you sincerely say that your Elegance doesn't contract, and at times to the point that you would be worried if you didn't know it was normal behavior, or expel waste frequently ( if you feed or have it under bright lights ?

I should clarify myself about the "broad statement" statement though, it was in reference to the elegance coral comments that Elegance coral wrote of in his previous post. I mentioned the other types of coral in my post to point out that is common behavior in most corals i've kept.

 

[John Kelly]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10470222#post10470222 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jman77
I don't consider myself a "noobie or a armchair "reef" scientists" if that what you were implying by your statement.

no no, no implication meant . It was directed more toward the "science" of the hobby in general. Actually, it was directed more toward the lack of it.

sorry

 

[elegance coral]

There is normal polyp retraction in Elegance corals. There is also normal discharge of small amounts of algae. All Elegance corals, even the largest most healthy one will do this. There is also stress related polyp retraction and stress related algae discharge. There is a difference between the two. If an Elegance is withdrawing to the point that it appears as though it may die and/or discharging large amounts of brown stuff, it is stressed. This is the time to intervene. An Elegance that is withdrawing to this extreme may be weakened by this stress to the point that it eventually falls victim to an infection. The time to evaluate the corals environment and make adjustments is before infection sets in. By the time an infection does sets in it may be to late to save the Elegance. An Elegance that is discharging large amounts of brown stuff (zooxanthellae) may be well on its way to bleaching. Again, this is the time to address the issue, before the coral bleaches. If these signs are ignored and viewed as normal behavior, there is no choice but to wait until the coral is very ill before anything can be done. There is a simple reason why I am successful with these corals time after time. I pay attention to these signs and make adjustments to the corals environment before the corals health is to far gone. The larger healthier Elegance corals I have do not display this extreme behavior.

 

[jman77]

"Elegance is withdrawing to the point that it appears as though it may die"

Mine does this at least once a week .. but does normal retraction daily

discharges waste as often as i feed it
Here are some pics of it today

 

[dla2000]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10469130#post10469130 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by elegance coral
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.

I agree with you.

The thing that I found very interested was where they found the most elegance coral being harvest from

Catalaphyllia jardinei (Elegance coral)

Habitat 1: Perhaps one of the bigger surprises came from our attempts to locate Catalaphyllia. We were assured that Catalaphyllia would be very common and collected from several sites. In fact, it was quite uncommon at all sites and the locations given by coral collectors seemed to vastly overstate its abundance. Fortunately, we did find examples at several different locations and, like Euphyllia, in very different habitats. Unlike Euphyllia, we found them to adopt quite distinct morphotypes, depending on the area of collection. The deepwater sites where Trachyphyllia were collected were also the area where we saw the most harvest of Catalaphyllia. To repeat, this is a very low-light sand and silt seafloor with no hard substrate and colonized by sparsely populated free-living corals, macroalgae, and cyanobacterial mats. Here, Catalaphyllia were found as small, free-living colonies that are generally the size and shape of the vast majority seen in aquarium stores. However, every coral seen - and every Catalaphyllia collected - from this area had purple tentacle tips. None of the Catalaphyllia at any other site had this characteristic.

Habitat 2: In contrast, the Catalaphyllia we found (rarely) at fringing, patch, and shallow submerged sites were mostly medium to large attached colonies. These colonies grew on the hard reef substrate and seemed to be able to grow much larger, adopting significantly developed flabello-meandroid growth forms. Furthermore, their skeleton, being attached, would be broken off for collection, rather than having the cone-shaped or unbroken bases typical of free-living colonies at all other sites. The colonies had the typically seen color patterns of bright green to brown with radiating stripes on the oral-disk, and brownish tentacles. Furthermore, the skeletons were well cleaned and whitish from grazing, and coralline algae and other typical invertebrates were found colonizing the skeleton. This is notable, given the next habitat description.

Habitat 3: The same general near shore, silty, shallow area where the dull colored Trachyphyllia were collected is also reported to be a prime area of Catalaphyllia collection. We did find a few specimens using searching and manta-tow techniques, but none ever appeared on any transects of the area. Therefore, we must assume a sporadic occurrence of low density. Like the deepwater habitat, Catalaphyllia collected here were free-living and never attached. They were found nearly buried in deep fine silts and were, also like the deepwater colonies, small and apparently size-limited by the substrate. More notably, the thick brown silt had discolored their skeletons from white to a dingy brown. The only notable growth on the skeleton was from the calcified tubes of polychaete worms. Their coloration was drabber, being brownish with muted green-brown oral disks and tentacle.

and no you can not tell where the elegance coral you got came from, so to help me out, I put my light high and I do plan on bring them down if needed.

 

[Mental1]

So with the limited reading I had done, we'll try this again as I forgot how to attach pictures on RC -- anyway. I bought an Aussie Elegance. My understanding is that the Aussies are hardier and can stand more light. I have T5's ...

 

[Mental1]

Now for the question -- would you say this coral looked okay? Should the polyps be longer? It's aboout halfway up in an 24 inch deep tank facing sideways. I have had it since Friday. I tried to feed it tonight with limited success -- mysis and a frozen mixture. As I said I have T5 -- very blue -- only one daylight out of the 5 lights. The lights are 6 inches above the tank and on for 7 hours -- only 3 and a half with all five lights. I have only had the lights a couple of weeks so am slowly acclimating the corals -- I did have PC lights prior to that. What do you think?

 

[elegance coral]

How long was the coral in the tank when you took the picture? Can you post an updated pic? If this is a pic of shortly after you got it, it's hard to tell if the coral is reaction to what it went through at the LFS or the conditions in your tank.

 

[Mental1]

It was in the tank about 24 hours. The coral pretty much looks the same -- there was brown stringy stuff coming out of the mouth after the lights went out tonight which I guess isn't great because as far as I could tell it did not eat a lot last night. I have moved it to the bottom of the tank but it will still be touching rock, glass etc because it is huge. I made the mistake of not asking how big it was before I bought it. It is about 8 to 9 inches by 6 to 8 inches. I won't be able to protect it from the gorillas but I thinkn they are less than a threat than being in the wrong spot. SHould I find it a new home? I can't put it anywhere in my tank where it won't be touching something. Nothing I read said that they can't touch rock, glass, etc.

 

[elegance coral]

In the pic it looks like it may be getting to much light. The fact that it discharged some of its algae indicates that it may be adapting to a brighter environment than it came from. Your description of the lights would suggest that this is not the case. What is the temperature of the tank? Does it fluctuate? Try reducing the temp of the tank and see if the puffiness or swelling goes down. I would be willing to bet that it does. A more recent pic would be a great help.

 

[Mental1]

I moved it to the bottom of the tank so it looks very unhappy at the moment -- polyps are pretty shrivelled up and it is shrinking. I promise I will post a picture tomorrow morning when the lights come back on. The tank temp at the moment is 78.8 -- it did go up the other night to 80 -- turned the airconditioner off because it was cool and then the weather changed overnight -- but it wasn't high for long. Should it be cooler than that? It just occurred to me (duh) that the guy I bought it from said he was keeping it in the dark so I guess any light could be stressing it. Don't know how long he had it for. Hopefully I have caught the most adventurous gorillas and they won't bug it tonight. Guess I did not do enough research but hopefully the move will make it happier -- we'll see what it looks like tomorrow. Thank you for the help.

 

[Mental1]

So it looks better with being moved. Here's a picture prior to the lights going on:

And here's another image several hours later with the actinics on but not full light yet:

Full lights are not on yet but I see a big improvement already. So far, gorillas not touching it -- so keep your fingers crossed for me as I have to get on an airplane today!

 

[graveyardworm]

Looks much better Sherri, good move.

 

[Mental1]

I called home and after the full lights were on it is apparently still the same as the above pictures. Phew! Finally a happy coral. Now to catch the rest of the gorillas! I caught two when I added rock and moved everything around and I caught two in mantis traps over the weekend. I think I still have about 4 to go.

 

[elegance coral]

Your coral looks much better. The most dangerous time for these corals is late in the day after the lights have been on for a while. If the lights are to strong the O2 level can climb to damaging levels before the lights go off at night, and the coral will start to swell.

 

[Mental1]

Unfortunately I have had to fly to Chicago so have to rely on reports from home. My husband said last night that it was expanded but concave and not convex -- so I am assuming that the coral is still happy. This weekend I will have a chance to observe it more and I hope, actually see it eat. In its present position it will get food but I will try and get some other stuff for it at the LFS. I have mysis but it doesn't seem to be doing the trick -- I think I need something with bigger chunks to get its attention.

 

[elegance coral]

Hay Graveyard, It's good to see you're still around. I saw that you asked Borenman for an update to the Elegance coral project back in May. I still stop by every now and then to see if he's going to answer you. No luck so far though.

 

[graveyardworm]

Nothing, I think funds ran out and possibly his time is being spent on other things for the time being. Hopefully eventually we will see a conclusion.

My elegance is still doing well, I had a green tree soft coral which has grown alot and was beginning to get real close there was an apparent reaction to it by the elegance and the tentacles on that side were beginning to shrivel a bit. I chopped back the branches on the green tree and things seem to be better now.