My elegance is freakin out

[mamastarfish]

Hey everyone,

I have had this elegance in my tank for about 2 months and it has been looking great until about 5 days ago. I woke up one morning and saw that it hadn't extended at all when the lights came on. Throughout the day it will puff up and open somewhat but never all they way. It still has very healthy color and responds to stimulus and even eats.

All of my parameters are great and the rest of the tank is thriving. The only thing that has changed recently is I supplemented my light with 2 stunner strips and changed my bulbs out to PC-R. (by the way this is in a BC14) But This was quite a while ago and the elegance was doing well with this lighting set up for a few weeks.

I have read that sometimes when corals are trying to grow they will not extend all the way to conserve energy but I wanted to get ya'lls opinions on the matter.

this is what it looks like now

This is what it looked like about a week ago.

 

 

 

Thanks

[Banjo]

It definitely looks pissed off. I don't know all that much about the species besides that they don't do too well in captivity. I don't know if they 'thrive' or not under CPF, you could check into that.

 

On another note, all of that cyano is definitely indicative of a problem... If nothing in your tank has changed, you can start with double checking your parameters.

[Euphyllia]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1842368

[Ostara]

This article is fairly long, but it explains the current problems with and huge mortality rates of elegance corals. This passage describes the issue:

 

Catalaphyllia's past reputation as being easy to maintain in aquariums for many years makes sense given its broad distribution range described above. Found in waters deep (>40m), shallow (<1m), turbid or clear, attached on hard patch reef substrate and free-living on soft substrates, this species occurs in greatly diverse habitats. Beginning sometime in the late 1990s, however, some specimens entering the trade were doomed by a condition that had no known cause or cure. Over time, virtually all specimens in the trade showed signs of this lethal condition, which causes the colony's oral disk to swell, with a fringe of unexpanded tentacles (Figure 4). In many cases, a white opaque mucus-like web is present (Figure 5). Feeding responses decline and tentacles are no longer “sticky” or able to easily capture prey items, even non-motile particulate material. The coral's tissue eventually shrinks, and the colony dies despite all manners of experimental intervention that have been attempted (Figures 6.1 and 6.2).

 

There are pictures showing the stages on the site.

 

I had the exact same problem; mine was fine for quite some time and then suddenly looked just like yours. I couldn't figure it out and at first it wasn't constant, one day it would be shriveled and the next it would be fine. Once it became shriveled all of the time I started researching and quickly found that article. The pictures matched the progression of mine's problems and I was dismayed by the prognosis: an as-yet-unknown disease or infection that seems to be contracted in holding tanks in Indonesia, is highly contagious, and always lethal. The author of the article simply refers to it as Elegance Coral Syndrome (ECS). If its only been five days or so yours is likely in the beginning stages, but it can drag out for quite some time. Mine hung in there for over a month, perhaps closer to two, looking progressively worse before I finally accepted the inevitable and pulled it. By that time the tissue had receded as the author describes and it no longer looked remotely like it had before.

 

I wish I had less-gloomy advice, but since apparently nearly all specimens from Indonesia come in with this (and Indonesia is where almost all of them come from), I'd assume that it has this loosely-termed ECS. It's unfortunate, since they're lovely corals and easy to keep when they don't have this disease.

[mamastarfish]

thanks for the input everyone. I was reading about the recent problems with elegance but that article is very helpful. I'm just going to hope for the best and see if it pulls through. I am gonna go ask the LFS that I bought it from how long it has been in the tank. And about the cyano, this has just been a recent development because I moved my power head and its growing in a few spots with no flow.

 

Wish me luck

[Formula462]

We have a 4 year old one that grows like crazy, but we don't really get new ones because they are so hit and miss.

[7digits]

Looks like mine before it quit openning and died. I know mine was from indonesia. Australian elegances do much better.

[mamastarfish]

just an update:

I have now noticed that part of soft tissue has beed severed on the back side of the coral. I'm not sure how this happened but I'm thinking (hoping) that this is the reason the coral is looking like this. I went to the LFS that I purchased it from and they said that this piece has been in their tank for quite some time (at least a few months) and it is indeed an Australian elegance. They recommended that I very carefully move the piece into a spot with a little lower light so I moved him into the shade. They also said that when you lift elegance from the water (to move from bag to acclimation and acclimation to tank) that you should always lift them up upside down so that the sharp skeleton doesn't sever the soft tissue. I did not do this. So I'm hoping that if I give it some time and plenty of supplement that it will slowly heal itself.

 

here is a pic of its current condition.