Anyone have long term success with an indo elegance coral?

[asylumdown]

The bad reputation that elegance corals have acquired in the past decade or so appears to be the result of a specific disease with an as yet unknown causative agent. Whether or not your elegance will survive long term depends very much on whether or not it's been exposed to the pathogen that causes 'Elegance Coral Syndrome' somewhere along it's chain of custody. There's a great article on it in reefkeeping magazine, which can be found here: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-01/eb/index.php

Unfortunately, elegances from the Indo-region are far more likely to have been exposed to this disease to begin with, and if it's been transported/housed in tanks holding other Indo-elegance corals at some point before you purchased it, it could very well have contracted it. You will know whether it's going to make it in a few weeks, a couple months at the most.

I can attest to the level of contagion of this disease - I had an Australian elegance for over a year, first as a very small specimen in a pico tank, then when it was larger, it lived in my 275. It was extremely healthy, inflating fully every day, and always exhibiting a healthy feeding response for just the time I had it. It tripled in size in the time I owned it. However, it wasn't as incredibly coloured as some of the fancier Indonesian elegances I kept seeing show up in stores, so one day I purchased another much nicer looking specimen from Wai's here in Calgary. At that point I knew nothing about Elegance Coral Syndrome (ECS). The new elegance began exhibiting symptoms of what I now know was ECS within a week of being in my tank, though at the time I thought it was a reaction to a new environment/lighting regime. The new elegance was completely dead 3 weeks later. I naively hoped that the new elegance would only partially die but still leave a mouth or two, so I left it in the tank until it was a bare skeleton. Shortly thereafter, my established elegance began to decline.

Here's some pics of the progression:
Brand new in the pico tank, scale is hard to gauge, but this was a 5 gallon tank, so you can imagine how small it was. This was January 16th, 2012


It was one of the first corals in my 275 and I bleached it a little right at the beginning because I didn't know how to program my lights properly - this was it nearly recovered on August 25th, 2012


This was it on December 28th, 2012. This is what this coral looked like every day, fully inflated, deeply coloured, always a great feeding response. It's 3 times larger here than in the first image. Unfortunately, this was also the day the last of the tissue of the new Indonesian elegance sloughed off.


Another pic from the same day (December 28th). You can see the skeleton of the new elegance in the bottom right


This photo is from January 6th, 9 days later. I thought the elegance was having a multi-day tantrum. I still didn't know what ECS was, or that this was the beginning of an inevitable end (it's the coral in the bottom right)


And finally, January 23rd, 2012

This was when I started doing some serious research in to elegance coral disease and realized what I had done. This coral followed the exact same progression as the Indonesian specimen, and started exhibiting symptoms 9 days after the new Indonesian specimen had completely died, after being vigorous and healthy for a year.

If your coral has been exposed, it's first symptoms will look a lot like the second last picture, it's tentacles will stay small and uninflated, and the oral disc will clamp, or generally not inflate. Then the tentacles will start to literally melt down to little nubs, and the oral disc will begin to take on a very unhealthy, swollen look. Finally, the oral disc will bleach completely, and eventually the tissue will begin to slough off. If this starts to happen, there's nothing you can do to stop it, and any other elegances you have in the tank are probably toast as well.

The good news is that if your coral has not been exposed to this disease and doesn't have it, it will likely be very robust and healthy for a very long time. You saw how quickly mine deteriorated once it had been exposed, so if yours makes it a month without declining I'd wager a good bet that it will be fine. If that's the case, I would never allow another elegance coral anywhere near the water that beauty is kept in unless it spent a couple of months in quarantine and was guaranteed to be clean.

Hope that helps.

[asylumdown]

I should add, a sign of a healthy elegance is one that eats all your snails. You can see in the third last pic the graveyard of mexican turbo shells that had accumulated around the coral.

[Bblinks]

Good to know, thanks for the info. I also have an aussie piece and its doing awesome for over a year.

[Gizmoh]

I have to apologize as mine was not an indo. But another piece of advise I have is to prepare for grow out! If it stays healthy the flesh can expand very quick!



These were taken about 6 months before I had to get rid of it do to the size

[carriej]

Thanks for all the responses guys, much appreciated.

I am a bit apprehensive about it for sure; I know for sure it's an indo. I think it was in a LFS 4 hours away for a week or two; and it took a 8 hour bus drive here last Wednesday. It was like non existent on the skeleton when it came, so I can't believe how big it expands from nothing.

I'm hoping it takes up the entire section of my 6 foot tank; the whole middle is open about 20 inches and I would like for it to take over that spot (lol) if it will.

So for now I guess I will keep an eye on it; every little thing it does I'm panicking. However I fed it some mysis tonight and it's tentacles grabbed it right away; so it must be feeling pretty good I guess. My tentacles are nowhere near as long as your guys though; holy crap!

[asylumdown]

Yah they're pretty variable in their tentacle length, but I've noticed that as they adapt to your aquarium, their tentacles seem to get longer. I'd bet that if yours does well, in 6 months or so it will look very similar to the ones pictured here.

If they're healthy, they're very robust corals. Easily one of the most forgiving and easiest to keep - it's why they got so popular and were over-collected. The ones that self destruct rapidly are usually sick with a specific disease, so in the absence of that disease, it should be fine. Thankfully, that disease doesn't seem to secretly lay dormant so if you've got it, you'll know pretty soon. If you make it a month with no symptoms I would be confident that it's going to thrive.

You'll never know what sort of conditions/holding facilities it was in along the chain of custody, but if you're looking for some peace of mind, you might want to call the store you bought it from and ask how often they house other elegance corals in the tank that yours was in at the store. I've had two now that were healthy and robust (the first was in my first salt water aquarium a few years ago) and one that came in with disease. The difference between the healthy and the diseased one (other than country of origin) that I could see (again, you'll never know how the wholesaler housed them) was that the diseased coral came from a tank that almost always has other indonesian elegance corals in it. I can't remember ever going in there and not seeing at least one, but usually several are kept in that display tank. The first elegance I had came from Big Al's Calgary, and the second from Red Coral in Edmonton, and the tanks they were in are primarily used from clams and other LPS frags/mini colonies. Those tanks rarely had more than one or two elegances in them at a time, and seemed to go months without any at all. As no one knows what causes ECS, it's hard to say how long the pathogen persists in a system (part of the reason why I've not replaced mine), but if the systems that they're housed in routinely run without any elegance corals in them for periods of time it can only hinder the spread of the disease.

Ultimately though, there's nothing more you can personally do than give it good water, appropriate flow, good lighting and isolate it from exposure to any possible future diseases. Anything that's happened has happened, so it's either going to (hopefully) thrive, or not. You'll know in a few weeks which it will be.

[carriej]

It was the only elegance he got and had in stock... So let's hope it does well ), east coast canada has very small fish stores.. So there is usually only 1 of everything unless it's something popular like frogspawn, etc.

I will be keeping close watch on it; but it seems like it's either going to happen or it's not. I've had it close to a week now.. So between the two moves (one to my dealer, and then on the bus to me) you would think it would have come out if it was going to.. But you never know.

[Rogue951]

I heard elegance don't do well in Eastern Canada, but the love it here on the West Coast... I voluntarily offer my tank as a sanctuary.......

That looks like an amazing piece. I've had good success with elegance in a mature tank. Bought one in my early tank days and it didn't last. (Could've been disease i suppose...)
bought another one that was fragged via bandsaw, in the process of healing and managed to grow it an inch of skeleton before it got too big for my tank and I had to sell it.

[hfp75]

My Elegance was an Indo from Frag-a-lot and it died at my house within a week.

Dont know if it was the disease or what......

I also read that Elegances are being over harvested and now are harvested from deeper water with lower light levels... when they get put into aquariums with more light they are overwhelmed.... and melt.

who knows if mine was sick or a low lighter. either way it melted in a few days....