Elegance Dead within 2 weeks

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12189605#post12189605 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Savas
I said it once, well, maybe 100 times, and I will say it again - if we stop buying these corals, vendors will stop selling them. They are very, very hard to grow.
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problem is the endless supply of people that will buy an animal without doing a bit of research until after they kill the first 2 or 3 of them... Or worse yet, the guys that are smarter than the masses and can keep any animal alive for 6 months...
 
I do not think this is an issue of skill. I spoke to the buyer for a store that advertises on RC and he said the species has a horrible mortality rate even for his store. They can only keep one alive to about a month or two, yet they had two for sale. After a while, no store will keep products that die faster than they can sell them. There is a small but growing list of fish and coral that should not be sold to hobbiest.

This issue really gets me upset because we are causing the problem instead of being part of the solution...
 
Savas, I totally agree! It's marketed as one of the easiest corals to take care of, but it's a disaster waiting to happen because as you said, Over the last 15 years I've purchased many... Only had luck with one. Then stopped buying them for a long time! But after I built my dream tank in the wall I could not resist to get one since this tank has so many more improvements over the last 4-5 tanks I've owned in the past. Like I said, I went all out with a 150G and buying everything under the sun to keep a healthy reef going!

I'm even trying to make it 100% automated. :) I'm big on automation... (Software Test Automation is my work) and Home Automation is one of my hobbies.

I'm even building now an automated water top-off and antomated water changing system. When done, the water will go from my mixing 20G tank to my tank, the water that overflows will go into a drain outside the house and into my rain gutter system.
The tank is still about 3 months old and I cannot do everything all at once. One step at a time I guess is the trick...
 
One of the biggest challenges in this hobby is knowing the limits of your tank. For some reason I cannot grow frogspawn; I have tried four times with it. I will never try it again. For what ever reason, my tank will not support it. Others though, grow it like a weed. If there is a coral that is generally regarded as a problem or waste of money, I think we shoud boycott it. Think what is happening to this coral in the wild if we keep buying it and killing it...
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12190361#post12190361 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Savas
One of the biggest challenges in this hobby is knowing the limits of your tank. For some reason I cannot grow frogspawn; I have tried four times with it. I will never try it again. For what ever reason, my tank will not support it. Others though, grow it like a weed. If there is a coral that is generally regarded as a problem or waste of money, I think we shoud boycott it. Think what is happening to this coral in the wild if we keep buying it and killing it...
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And not thinking you can buck the system .... just like the poster above you.. "I have bought many over the years...." and he did not stop and 2 or 3 but many... this is what drives the market...


Research throughly any animal prior to purchase..

Also, buying captive bred animals is typically the way to grow the most successful tanks.. they animals are acclimated to home tanks already and your success rates are amazingly high..

Another big factor? just too many different animals in a tank.. I think 2 or 3 coral colonies should suffice most tanks.. instead you see a guy with 20 corals and none are very notable.. Just a bunch of struggling frags...
 
Randall james : elegance was one of the most easiest corals to keep in the early eighties when reefing became big in north america...
ask anyone involved in the hobby from back then...

as for "advanced tank keepers" ... in your post on page 1....I dont think so.
 
Elegance has been on the "Nearly impossible" page for about 4 years now...

"was" and going back to the eighties is ridiculous reasoning... (many of the "new reefers" were born in the 80's

There are literally thousands of extinct species since the 80's...

The accepted experts can not find a common ground on why this coral has become this way.

It is unlikely that a 1 year hobbyist is going to plop down an acceptable reason when they can not even keep a stable tank..

Speculation is irrelevant when all this hobby is doing is killing off more of the animals.. There are simply too many corals that can be kept in captivity for long periods of time without loss... I have not lost an animal in my tank in over 3 years (coral or finned) and that is not luck, it is just picking things that are "hardy" and tank bred in the first place..

a casual observer to my tank can not tell that the Anemone species they are seeing live hundreds of years or that the pulsing sinularia was only described 6 or so years ago, they just see "Fish"

I see very low maintenance
 
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If we go back to the 80's I am definately wearing my matching Izod socks, pants, and shirt. I had the red and blue complete matching sets... :)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12190875#post12190875 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Savas
If we go back to the 80's I am definately wearing my matching Izod socks, pants, and shirt. I had the red and blue complete matching sets... :)
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That is the hard part of this hobby, you gotta be able to discard old information (that may have "Been" accurate" at one time but is antiquated now and replace it with current data that is valid..

but going back to the eighties? Where the hell is PaulB... only guy I know here that likely had any experience back then.. but I bet a lot has changed...
 
I still have a crushed coral bottom in all my tanks - now sand is the fashion o' the day. Things change... As Darwin said, "adaptation is the greatest predictor of survivability of a species."
 
Well if it helps, I remember the JFK assassination.. but my ideas have evolved a long ways as things changed over 40+ years.. new stuff every day... leaded gas, R12, TCE , whaling, and a few other things that have changed 180 degrees in that time...
 
I was reading this thread and happened to notice that Reef Hotspot is selling three of the Indonesian Elegances. And yes I was around in the 1980's.
 
I'm thinking back to about 1983/1984 a store in new york city called "New york aquarium and pet supply" ...they had tanks full of gorgeous elegance.the tanks contained dead coral skeletons as base rock,wetdry filtration and four no flourescent bulbs...
and the elegance were thriving !!!

anybody remember that place???
 
I agree many things change and evolve in this hobby. One thing I feel should maybe change is the "beginner" to "expert" classification. It would better be described as "lazy" to "aggressive". Those that are aggressive at husbandry and gaining knowledge can keep most anything alive thats available. Yes a few things are on the never list, but most can be maintained. I have seen many tank pictures that make me wonder why people even have a tank. They would be better off with a goldfish bowl then a reef tank.

I am kinda sad to admitt I have been around longer then the 80's. The main issue is things have gotten "better" since then, as who had SPS Acro's back then? Elegance is a fairly easy keeper if you do right by it. The number one reason of massive demise is documented in many areas, and hence the study by Eric.

The issue I feel starts at collection. They are stored in systems that will infect them, and also agree if we didnt buy them for awhile maybe the systems and collection efforts would get cleaned up so we once again could have a high success rate with an awesome specimin.
 
I have the same issue with "live" rock. Having seen the process up close in the Dominican Republic, there ain't nothin' live about that rock...
 
I also disagree about the Elegance corals all being impossible to keep. We have a lively discussion in the LPS forum that is on-going and documenting people having these corals for years. Yes, a lot of people purchase without doing the research. I did the research, decided against an Indo and bought an Aussie. Did I have a learning curve anyway in understanding how to care effectively for the coral? Yup. Does that happen with all of the corals I buy? Yup because reading only gets you so far as then you have to see how they adapt to your tank. Are we irresponsible for buying these corals? Nope -- in the case of the Aussie corals it is regulated and they have a high survival rate. For the Indo ones? Yup as very few survive and it is unregulated. We should ban buying all corals from places where the reef is raped and not regulated. So no more purchasing of any Indo corals and fish. I mean really if you want to talk about responsible reefkeeping....
 
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