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 tentacles. [/QOUTE]
You really can't tell where the elegance coral that you get came from so to help me, i put my lights up high and I can bring them down if needed.
I have learned one thing when dealing with elegance corals and that is don't trust the pet stores, even the one you deal with a lot.
