The professionals that have studied this problem have found exactly what I would expect them to find in these dead or dieing corals. They have found damage to cell walls, or cellular architecture. They have found many organisms feeding on this tissue, from what was simply called microbes, to bacteria, fungus, and many other unknown organisms. Examining dead animals like mammals is a great way to determine how they died. Mammals have complexed circulatory systems and many different organs that are responsible for different jobs. We can cut these dead animals open and discover what organ failed and why. This process does not work well with corals. Corals do not die like mammals do. If a mammal's heart stops the entire animal dies. With corals, they die cell by cell. It is more of a chain reaction. It is rare, outside of a catastrophic event, for an entire coral to die all at once, like mammal's do. They do not possess a complext circulatory system or the many organs that can fail like we do. Examining a dead coral is not an easy way to determine how it died. What has been found in dead Elegance corals only tells us that mother nature is working as she has sense life began on this planet. Animals die and many organisms quickly begin to break down the tissues. There has not been a link discovered between these organisms and the cause of the corals death. Simply finding these organisms tells us nothing we didn't already know. In a case like the Elegance coral problem where we have many, if not most, of the corals coming into the hobby suffering from the same symptoms and dieing, the best way, in my opinion, to determine the cause of the corals death would be with living corals. We would need to discover what brings on these symptoms. If it is a highly contagious species specific pathogen we should be able to stock an aquarium with healthy Elegance corals, observe them over time to insure they are healthy, then introduce a coral showing these symptoms and the healthy corals should become ill. I have a 29gl aquarium with 10 Elegance corals in it. Some I have had for well over a year. Some are very healthy, some very ill, and some in recovery. I have repeatedly introduced corals that were swollen or completely withdrawn into their skeleton. The only time I have noticed an adverse reaction from the healthy corals in the tank was when one of the corals had an active infection and tissue was decomposing. Even then the healthy corals while they would not expand fully did not come down with the infection themselves. After the infected tissue was removed from the system the healthy corals returned to their normal expansion. The symptom of an over inflated oral disk and shrunken tentacles, or completely withdrawing into their skeleton is not contagious. I have mixed corals showing these symptoms with healthy corals many times over the past year and a half and have never noticed a reaction from the healthy corals in the system. This to me rules out the possibility of a highly contagious species specific Pathogen being the cause of the problem. Examining dead Elegance corals can not prove or disprove the involvement of a highly contagious species specific pathogen unless one had been discovered. There is no known organism we can point to and say it is a highly contagious species specific pathogen. No one has even come close to proving its existence.
confused: ). I think most people stopped holding their breath for a conclusion to come out of that "research" a long time ago.
. It was supposed to be more like a philosophical plan of action for getting the information about elegance corals out to a much larger audience, achieving recognition for your work, and setting yourself in the official chair of authority on the subject.
