Elegance Coral

[SnowManSnow]

<-- Thinking of purchasing one... anyone have one with pics and so forth? I've read reports of a couple of different types... one having purple tips.. the other pink.. and the purple seems to survive more readily... Not sure how accurate this is.


Any advice on elegance corals? What should I expect to pay for one?

Anyone?

B.

 

[Anonymous]

I hear they are hard to keep.

 

[Anonymous]

The word on the street is that they used to have a good survival record, but these days they tend not to fare well. Anyone able to refute that? Because I see gorgeous ones in the LFS all the time and I have been tempted.

 

[Anonymous]

The word on the street is that they used to have a good survival record, but these days they tend not to fare well. Anyone able to refute that? Because I see gorgeous ones in the LFS all the time and I have been tempted.

Brian is right, IME

 

[Anonymous]

Why don't they fare well? the way the ship? water conditions? ...I've also been tempted. 8)

~wings~

 

[Anonymous]

Yep, Ive heard they dont last long in the home aquarium...Not sure to how true that they use to be easily kept in the aquarium..That could be that many years ago, keeping near perfect water conditions wasnt easy so they may like less then perfect water...Other than that, i cant see why they would be good to keep years ago vs today...

 

[Anonymous]

I don't know what the problems are today. It was one of the first corals I kept years ago. No skimmer and fairly low light. I tried a couple of years ago to recreate those same conditions and keep one - no luck though. I think they are very pretty, but I'm not willing to try another one yet.

 

[Anonymous]

Could it be that they require high nutrients to survive and most of us go for a low nutrient system.

 

[SnowManSnow]

I read that there are 2 basic types of them. ONe has shorter tenticles, one with longer ones... with frayed ends. The one with frayed ends I think is harvested from deeper water. I read on a webpage where most of the corals being harvested lately are actually the ones from deeper water, but people are still keeping them as they were the other ones... and they don't fare too well.

ALl the older aquarium books read that the elegance coral is one of the easier ones to keep.. the newer books seem to say otherwise.

B.

 

[SnowManSnow]

Hey i think i see one in a pic that a guy has in the "newbies" forum. Check it out. It looks like one of the older kinds with the pink tips as opposed to the blue or purple ones. Let's see if it lives!

 

[the dewd]

Here is a pic of my elegance. I purchased it 2 weeks ago. I had to be careful putting it in the tank because it opened up half way on the way home. It was all the way open that same day. It seems to be doing great even though I have red slime at the moment. It likes zoomax and chunks of fish. Looks sweet in the actinic.

 

[Anonymous]

Gorgeous Dewd - good luck with it and keep us posted.

 

[Anonymous]

Quote:

As a "content" provider (writing, photographs) in the ornamental aquatics interest (hobby, business, sciences) I’m faced with
answering queries about "trouble organisms" on a constant basis... As a real "old timer" who’s time in marine husbandry
spans its modern advent (yep, back to Robert P.L.
Straughan) to the present, I have seen trends, topics and fads come and go (e.g. both cycles of sugar as salt mix...
remember Magic Ocean?).

Incredulously, certain aspects of the trade have persisted... I would have never believed the insidious practice of cyanide
poisoning would make it past the millennium, let alone spread from the Philippines to parts of Indonesia...

And livestock... Folks are STILL buying/trying Moorish Idols (Zanclus canescens), Pinnatus Batfish (Platax pinnatus)
and Ribbon Moray Eels (Rhinomuraena spp.)... though these (and other fish species used extensively) have dismal survival
records; more than 99% dying within a few months of wild collection...

And fishes aren’t the only "ridiculous ongoing examples of poor choice"... Back in the fifties and sixties, what was the most
popular genus of corals used in the hobby? Goniopora spp., aka Flower Pot Corals... and still in number two popularity
(Green and Shirley, 1999)... and is still a very poor choice... yes, rating my worst of three rankings (a three) with more
than half dying within three months of gathering off the reef.

Which leads us to the topic of this essay, the
third most commonly available scleractinian species, Elegance Coral, Catalaphyllia jardinei. Though writers from
Veron (1986) to Fatherree (1999) rate this species as "excellent" for aquarium use, more than half of them perish
within a couple of months. My purpose here should be obvious: to make consumers aware of the odds they face in
selecting this reef-building stony coral, and to increase the folks who decide to invest in this species chances of
keeping theirs alive by providing natural history and husbandry information. To wit: this species does not live in
sterile, nutrient-deprived settings... but in the wild in muddy, mucky areas semi-buried in the substrate... sometimes in the
shallows of nearshore, other times at the base of reef slopes at depths of 20 meters or more.
-Robert M. Fenner
Wetwebmedia.com/

Here is the link, if you want to read further:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/elegance.htm

 

[Anonymous]

Good info, Unleashed, thanks for posting it.

Since I don't want a muddy, mucky reef I will continue to pass on these.

 

[SnowManSnow]

Nice big words too Someone did good

I really consider it a challenge to keep organisms like the elegance coral. If for no other reason than to one day aspire to fragging it off to a fellow reefer. I don't think it is an endangered coral at the moment, but many of the beautiful difficut to keep corals soon face that end. If we can aquaculture these things and somehow inspire them to thrive in our aquariums maybe that end can be diverted!!!

I wonder if, over a period of months, you can change what the coral likes as far as water temprement. I mean, can you start it off in a lower light, lower flow aquarium and very gradually acclimate it to a brighter more sterile system?

B

 

[wstellwagen]

check out E Borneman in reef central . The problem does not appear to be husbandry but something more basic-collection practices etc.

Walt

 

[SnowManSnow]

Hmm..

I've heard this theory too. It actually is related to the different depths that they are harvested at.. like I mentioned before.

Has anyone here ever had one for an extended period of time? (more than a year)

Just currious?

If so, what conditions did you keep it under?

B

 

[Anonymous]

I am not going to try these guys again. I had one and after about six months, it just started to fall apart. It was in a really flourishing tank. I don't know what was wrong.

 

[reefland]

Here is a page on my elegance that I have had since April 1999, and now it is dropping off daughter colonies.

http://www.rl180reef.com/180/pages/cora ... egance.htm

I have an article accepted for publication documenting the details. It will be on reefkeeping.com in a month or so.

 

[Anonymous]

most elegance corals imported today last no longer than a few months, and succumb to the 'brown jelly' syndrome.more info about the whole deal can be found on the 'elegance coral project' and related threads on RC.

having worked at an importer's in cali for a short while, i'll second the recommendation that all hobbyists stay away from them, at least until the pathogen's cause and cure is nailed down.

(fwiw-it's also one of my favorite LPS corals, but their track record has declined steadily since the 90's-now they are almost impossible to keep healthy long term, and are most likely suffering from overcollection-they are coming in smaller and smaller every year)