Troubled Elegance

Dano999

Dano999

Premium Member
Need some advise with my Elegance coral. For about a week it has refuse to open all the way. Water parameters are good and all my other LPS are looking great. Any advise.

Temp - 79.8
SG - 1.026
NH4 - 0.0
NO2 - 0.0
NO3 - 0.0
PH - 8.05
Ca - 480
PO4 - 0.3
dKH - 9.9
Mg - 1380

Now

elegance032108.jpg


A few weeks ago

elegance021508final.jpg
 
That looks like a typical indo elegance that is not doing well, I'm afraid. Try shading it and see if that helps. The indo elegance just dont seem to do well in captivity generally
 
Actually it's an Aussie Catalaphyllia jardinei which are suppose to do well. It's from Drs. Foster & Smith's LiveAquaria.com so I trust they would not sell me something else.
 
The cup/vase shape of the skeleton and the coloration looks more like an indo to me. I have quite a few aussie elegance corals myself. Regardless of that, I'd still shade it a bit and see if it looks better in a week or so. If it continues to go down hill, thats another good sign that you may have been shipped an indo by mistake.

Only other thing I see is that I keep my PH closer to the 8.3 range
 
Thanks I'll try that.

Another question. How often should it be fed? I put some micro plankton and cyclop-eeze in the tank and it perked up a bit.
 
Elegance dont usually eat anything that small. Krill, a piece of silverside, or something like that is better. I actually haven't fed the ones in my display for several months now, and they are growing great with just light and good water quality.
 
That's what I figured but I have other coral that do eat it. I gave it some brine shrimp and it took it readily.

It's now in a more shaded area but the original area had some shade also.

What is a sure way of telling whether it is an Indo or Aussie?
 
Good luck. Mine did the same thing and for the life of me I couldn't turn it around. Wish I knew how hard they were to keep before I spent my money on one.
 
Yeah this one cost me $150 so it wasn't cheap. The Indos were half that. It was from L.As Diver Den and had a caption that said

"This is the hardy one that actually stays alive"

I think I'll be calling LiveAquaria tomorrow.
 
Usually the aussies have a clean end, like they were broken from a much larger piece. Kind of like a big frag. Very seldom is the skeleton complete, IMO, like yours looks to be. Also, that pattern yours has is a very typical indo color and pattern, right down to the purplish brown coloration between the green sections. I've seen a couple aussies with a similar pattern, but generally they are more evenly patterned with less blotching of color. At least the ones I have been seeing.
 
Yours does indeed took to have the mysterious 'Elegance Coral Disease". Swollen middle, highly retracted tentacles; the one thing going for you is that it looks like the tissue hasnt separated from the edge of the skeleton yet though. Currently there is no known cause or cure. One thing is well documented though- it is highly contagious between elegance corals (though it does not seem to affect other species). I seem to remember something in the ball park of 90% plus contamination rate once exposed to an infected individual according to one study. Recovery is certainly less than 5%.

Zeppelin (and LiveAquaria) are correct; Aussie elegance corals do seem to be much more resistant to this problem than the Indo ones are. But, its very possible that LA kept your individual 'downstream' of some affected Indo individuals, which could lead to it developing the disorder. I really dont know their setup though, so I could be entirely wrong, just an educated guess.

It is still possible that the condition developed as a response to your tank though- so dont automatically assume it was the source. Was yours under intense halide? Was it under strong water movement? Either/both of those things can lead to that kind of stress response after a few weeks. Are you sure no one has been picking at it- angels, butterflies, etc?
 
I have T5 VHO lighting and it's 30" from the lights so it not intense. It's also slightly shaded but not much as there is little shaded area on the substrate.

Water movement is low to moderate which I have tried real hard to maintain because I also have other LPS on the bottom.

No Angels or Butterflies in the tank only a Foxface and a small Powder Brown Tang. I haven't noticed anything else pick at it which would include Peppermint shrimp, Bluelegged and Scarlet Hermits. The only other thing I lost was a Tridacna crocea which was shipped with the Elegance (separate bags of course).
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12148530#post12148530 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by zeppelin
Usually the aussies have a clean end, like they were broken from a much larger piece. Kind of like a big frag. Very seldom is the skeleton complete, IMO, like yours looks to be. Also, that pattern yours has is a very typical indo color and pattern, right down to the purplish brown coloration between the green sections. I've seen a couple aussies with a similar pattern, but generally they are more evenly patterned with less blotching of color. At least the ones I have been seeing.
Click to expand...

The skeleton is complete and goes to a point at the bottom.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12148853#post12148853 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Dano999
The skeleton is complete and goes to a point at the bottom.
Click to expand...

That is generally an indo elegance type skeleton, IMO.
 
I can't say for sure what country your coral came form, but I can tell what environment it came from. The dark discolored skeleton tells us it was buried in the mud/silt. The dark brown of the zooxanthellae tells us it was in deep water. The fact that it seems to be suffering the same symptoms as all the other deep water Elegance corals further suggests it is from deep water.

All of the Australian Elegance I have seen were collected in shallow water near or on the reef. The skeletons are white and the zooxanthellae are much lighter. Most of the Indo's I have seen were collected from the same environment as yours. I assume it is possible that an Australian collector grabbed an Elegance while diving for other deep water corals, but this would be a very rare occasion. It's easier to collect one large coral and take it back to the shop and cut it into 12 pieces than it is to swim around looking for 12 small corals. This is why most Australian Elegance corals are frags. In Indonesia they have fished out most of these larger shallow water corals and are now stuck collecting small corals from deep water.
 
I just wanted to say that I contacted LiveAquaria.com and they are crediting my account for the $150.00. That's what I call customer service. They are even going to credit me the $50 for the Tridacna crocea which died two weeks ago. As I mentioned above both were from the same shipment.
 
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