anyone having sucess w/elegance?

I was wondering if anyone is having longterm sucess with elegance corals? I have not bothered in years, got sick of watching them slowly die. Well my husbandry skills are a hell of alot better than back then but I'm still very leary. Any feedback?

 

We (Tangster and I) have had our elegance coral for about a year now and it has not given us any trouble. The trick is getting a healthy specimen to begin with and if you're having one shipped, getting the provider to take care not to handle the coral roughly or ship it badly. Once the tissue on these corals becomes damaged, you can pretty much count them out.

 

The track record for long term success of Elegance corals is slim at best, FOR MOST PEOPLE! I would strongly urge you to try one of the easier LPS's such as Nemenzophyllia(Fox coral), or one of the Euphyllia species for a better chance of success.
Amcarrig is correct in that shipping and handling has a great deal to do with the introductory success of Elegance, but for some reason(s), none of which are totally engraved in stone, many people fail over time with the keeping of this beautiful coral, without knowing the real reason behind its demise. The same holds true with Goniopora!

 

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This is a couple of short videos of my Elegance corals. The Indo Elegance corals are still having problems and most likely will keep having problems. I would avoid these corals unless you can find a relatively healthy one and you do not have intense lighting. The Australian Elegance corals are not having the same problems as the indo Elegance corals. If you want an Elegance I would suggest spending the extra money and getting an Aussie Elegance.

 

And if that clown keeps messing with it I'll flush the clown..

 

If you can net them, I'll gladly sell them

 

I have an Indonesian elegance coral that's been healthy for about 10 years now and has added several inches to it's skeleton. I've heard people contribute the demise of these corals to all sorts of things. Parasitic diatoms, bacteria, viruses, damages in shipping, differnce in tissue thickness from the thicker skinned shallow specimins that use to be collected until their deplition to the now deeper water, thinner tissue ones collected now.

In my opinion it is in part to the way we set our aquariums up. The aquarium I have my elegance in would probably be considered unhealthy by some. It is lit by H.O.'s I do not have a U.V. sterilizer, or any advanced filtration other then an air lift style protein skimmer, and a few lift tubes in the tank for circulation. I do a 10% water change every 2 weeks and occasionaly add calcium, and trace elements. I also occasionaly add 'green water'

In short what I'm trying to get at is I think part of the cause may be that we do not create an ideal enviroment for corals like elegance that are collected from turbid lagoon conditions. A tank with U.V. sterilizers, heavy filtration and skimming, lit by M.H., P.C. combos may be excellent for SPS, and many other corals, but that doesn't mean it's a healthy enviroment for every type of coral.

 

If you ever get tired of that 10 year old Elegance, I'll help you out and take it off your hands;D .

That whole skin thickness thing was my idea, and I was wrong. I posted it in the middle of my research, before I fully understood the problem with these corals. (a big mistake) Now I know why researchers don't publish their findings until after the work is complete. I tried to explain that I was posting it prematurely due to pressure from fellow hobbyist and that I still had more work to do. That was some time ago and I have done much more research since then. I knew that these corals were having problems acclimating to our aquarium lights, but didn't understand why the corals tissue would be damaged so easily. After studying many more individuals, it has become apparent that the tissue does not become so fragile until after it has been over exposed to bright light. The more damage the coral receives from this exposure the more delicate the tissue becomes. I now believe that this delicate tissue is brought on by oxidation during these exposures. If these corals are kept from light that is bright enough to cause them to swell and withdraw their tentacles, their tissue does not become overly sensitive. After this exposure and the tissue has become degraded, these corals become much more susceptible to these infections from what has simply been called microbes, to bacteria, fungus, and a host of other organisms. This is the only time that this problem becomes contagious. As we have known from the beginning of this hobby, any infection in a closed system can become contagious. Even after an Elegance comes down with an infection, it is far from a death sentence for any healthy Elegance in the same system. I have never lost a healthy Elegance because a new arrival came down with an infection. While a healthy Elegance will react negatively when there is an infected Elegance in the same system, if the infected tissue is removed, and a partial water change is done, the healthy Elegance will recover. At least they always have in my system. In the video I posted, "Elegance corals have no disease", it shows the skeleton of an Elegance that came down with an infection in this system with the other Elegance corals. It is the coral in the back center of the tank. I zoomed in to show where the infection had killed off part of the polyp leaving empty skeleton behind. I managed to stop the infection and the remaining polyp is recovering nicely. The infection did not spread to other corals in the tank.

 

I think my elegance is very healthy. The previous owner kept her in this 14 gallon BioCube for 8 months. I bought the whole system.

My tank looks a little different now since I changed some LR, added 2 fish and one coral. But the elegance is the same. I can post updated pics as soon as I get new batteries for my digital camera.

 

And this is how the elegance looks after the lights come on in the morning.

Note in the pic above she is eating raw shrimp!

She was starting to "crawl" up the side of the tank so I had to clear some space and move her to her own corner. She has plenty of unobstructed room now!