Elegance Coral

[The Saltwater Kid]

How many here have Elegance corals? There is one at my LFS that is from a local reefer who frags his parent colony and it looks really good, bright flourescent green with vibrant purple tips to it's tentacles. Aparently this guy has had his Elegance for quite some time so my LFS thinks the hardiness issues wouldn't apply as much to frags from him since the track record of the parent coral is so good. It's decent sized...maybe 6" when expanded and they want $80 for it. Is it worth it? What are some care tips? I think they are beautiful corals but have always stayed away from them because of their recent dubious survival record. Also, will they do well under 150w HQI lighting?

 

[LesMartin]

Go for it. The health issues all stem from the imported indo pacific ones which Eric borneman did a study on. It appears that they are being imported with some sort of infection. This is why the Aussie ones are ok. If yours is a frag from a healthy one then you'll have no problems at all. It will do well under 150 watt halides as they are very tolerant of varying light intensities. Mine are under 250 watt bulbs at the moment but were under 150watt previously.

 

[The Saltwater Kid]

Right now it's in the LFS 180g tank on the sand bed under two 250w MH lighting and seems to be doing great. I have a BC29 with 150w HQI lighting. Also, seems like there's a good amount of flow in the LFS tank and right now I am running one Koralia 1 (400gph), two Koralia Nano's (240gph) and my return pump is an MJ1200 (295gph). To top it off the only place I really have to put this coral would be right out in the open in front on my sand bed. What do you think?

 

[LesMartin]

They don't like a lot of direct flow and it sounds like that's what you have. Indirect gentle flow seems to be what they prefer otherwise they won't open right up and tentacle extension won't be as good.

 

[The Saltwater Kid]

Maybe I should take out the Koralia 1?

 

[The Saltwater Kid]

I just called my LFS and actually they have two Elegances in stock right now and the smaller one I was interested in actually wasn't from a local reefer like I had originally thought but from one of their wholesaler's in L.A. who said it came from a buddy of his who bought it and grew it out and then sold it back to him and he in turn sold it to my LFS. The guy who I deal with at my LFS actually said he's not completely sure he believes the guy but ordered the coral anyway and they've had it for about 1 month and he told me to hold off on buying for another week or two, even though it looks really healthy because he can't be certain if it's an Aussie or an Indo. The other larger Elegance is from a local reefer who turned it in and he said he'd have no problem selling me that one but I'm not interested for two reasons...first it's quite large and second it doesn't have a lot of color, it's green but it's tentacles don't have the colored tips. I guess I'll wait and see what the smaller one looks like after another couple of weeks.