My elegance coral looks like it dieing

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Scotty09

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 10, 2011
Messages
315
My elegance coral looks like it dieing but all over corals fine any ideas
 
well, if it's from indonesia, they don't have a good track record. i have heard they are nearly impossible to keep long term.
only aussie elegance seem to hold up to the stresses of closed systems.
 
Well it looks ok just been closed half up for a week I only had a saltwater tank for 4months never even kept fish lol
 
How did you know that your Elegance Coral was sick? I have a greenish one that has 5 separate fleshing parts all in a row. Today one seems missing, bit I can't tell if it's just retracted or moved. They look more crammed together than usual. Then there are these brown bubbles where the missing one used to be... Is that the same thing as what happened with yours?
 

Attachments

  • image-1149661535.jpg
    image-1149661535.jpg
    67.2 KB · Views: 166
  • image-2389379834.jpg
    image-2389379834.jpg
    65.4 KB · Views: 242
I didn't realize one of the photos I posted was blurry. This one should be better.
 

Attachments

  • image-3537935240.jpg
    image-3537935240.jpg
    67.2 KB · Views: 150
  • image-4077382006.jpg
    image-4077382006.jpg
    67.2 KB · Views: 144
Hard to tell from the pictures but is there a brown slime on the risht side of the skeleton or is that the tenticles of the coral when it is drawn in.
 
Ok so i just realized there are two different posters on this thread. Wael - your looks to have brown jelly disease. Try to remove any of the brown slime from the coral and keep good flow over that area. Thats about all i can tell you besides fragging off the infected area which can be difficult with elegance corals. Others may be able to suggest a better way to treat it but i have not hear of one.

Scotty- can you get some water readings? How long has the coral been in the tank? Also are there any other fish in the tank with it?
 
+1. i would frag off that part with the brown jelly or you will lose the entire coral. flow isn't going to save it now IME.
 
Well, I picked up the coral and held it in front of the wavemaker, all the brown jelly flew away and floated on the surface. I did that before reading the thread updates. I believe the majority of the jelly will get caught in the overflow. I'll monitor the coral through out the day.

So how do I frag off the jelly? Do I get a container, fill it with water then transfer the coral to that container to clean off the brown jelly from the skeleton?

cheers

Wael
 
i would not have let the brown jelly float around the tank, especially if you have other LPS in it. cause and treatment unknown, BJD is thought to be a bacterial infection. i have seen it wipe out most of the LPS in people's tanks after introduced.
at the very least i would have shook the coral in a bucket of SW, but my idea was to get a saw/dremel and cut the skeleton taking with it some healthy flesh, to separate the BJD from the healthy flesh, and the tank.
 
I really belive that elegance won't be around long. I've NEVER heard of anyone having luck with them in recent years. Beautiful as they are (yes, I tried one once), they just don't do well in the home aquarium.
 
actually, if you get an australian elegance, you'll have a lot better luck. it's the more common and more affordable indo ones that die left and right.
 
Well, the BJD returned so I pulled the coral out and placed in a container by itself and did a water change. I read up about this problem further and found this article http://www.athiel.com/lib/bacterial.html.

So I bought a Phosphate reactor yesterday and bought some type of gravel looking filter that's supposed to take care of the silica in the water in hopes it will save this coral but it's probably too late for it as I believe it will take a week before these filters have any effect on the water quality.

I know this is not the thread to discuss UV lights but I was about to buy one yesterday too but the 2 LFS I frequent as well as certain articles I've read suggested that using UV light will kill all bacteria (at least 90%) both good and bad, which seems desirable for FOT but not for a reef aquarium. Both LFS owners told me they run it for about one week on and week off because they have very large display aquariums with both fish and corals. So I estimate that 1 week would be enough to run 1/2 the tanks water through the UV. Should I get one? Would it have taken care of the BJD?

Going back to the elegance coral. One of the LFS I visited just received a stunning collection of elegance corals...so many of them, various types and various colors. I asked where they're from and he said Indonesia...I would like to try and get one again. I'll probably wait for some time to make sure my tank has gone through enough water changes and the new filters have taken effect on the water. Does that seem reasonable or is there no hope and the BJD will always be present in certain amounts in my tank?

cheers

Wael
 
I forgot to mention that during my water change I added the coral's weekly dosage of vitamins which has B12, Iodine and vitamine C among other things. I've read that Iodine and vitamin C help sick corals. Is there any truth to that or is it just snake oil?

cheers

Wael
 
no. that's not true. an iodine dip, can possibly help, but dosing iodine without testing for it is a bad idea. the brown jelly will not always be present. and i do not agree with the brown jelly being noticeable or something that you can look for before it happens. i believe that all info about it thus far is speculation.
btw, they list like 20 possible causes...they have no idea what the scoop is. they know about as much as you or i do now.
i do know that i have done many things to combat it, and then nothing but fragging the infected head off, and both had about the same results.
in the end, you want to separate the healthy tissue from the afflicted, ASAP.

it doesn't make any sense to run a UV sterilizer part time. i'm an advocate for not running one at all. the only way it would work is if you had the entire tank under UV light. we all know that can't happen.

it's a mistake to purchase another indo elegance. it will fail. just look online for an aussie one, or perhaps ask your LFS to put one in the next aussie order. they do order aussie corals, right? it should be an easy task if they do.
 
You're right, it makes no sense to run a UV light part time. I did find a product by Saechem called Coral Disinfectant. It's a dip for corals that kills bacteria among other things. I will use it next time before adding any new corals to my aquarium. Has anyone used it?

As far as this elegance coral I pulled out and took it back to the LFS. I've only had it for a week or so. It's odd because it's been in his tank for a long time and seemed just dandy.

There is so many restrictions here on importation of anything. Ny dogs have to travel as cargo thru registered shippers with tons of paperwork and permits from health ministry, import license.... PITA. Corals are consider live so they fall under the same rules as parrots, dogs, cats, snakes...etc. And importation from Australia is not allowed due to it considered endangered so we're limited to Singapore, Fiji, Malaysia, Indonesia.
 
here's a little video i took a couple years ago, when i was selling stuff. take a look in the beginning of how close the acan colonies are together. i had them for about a month or so like that and then one of the colonies right in the center got BJD. it didn't spread to anything else.
crazy weird. i lost the whole thing, less about 3 polyps i fragged off in the beginning.
 
Back
Top Bottom