Well I did it...

[thekid55]

nice coral. what is with the bottle in the tank

[jason412]

Thanks, I was using the bottle as a flow meter basically. The more flow around that rock the more the bottle would bob up and down so I kind of used it is a ruler to kinda guestimate how fast the current would be where I place the Elegance. It allowed to me see the current where and how fast it was where some places I had a hard time judging exactly how fast it is.

Update: Well this morning it expanded as big as Ive ever seen it and this evening I only have 1 thing to say......I need a bigger tupperware container!!!!
Jason

[Elegance Coral]

Sweet! That is great to hear. I am slowly starting to see more threads of people having success with these corals under lower light levels. Like the threads you have seen on that other sight. Hopefully this is catching on and we can beat this Elegance coral problem.

[jason412]

Well heres a pic of it after it just ate some mysis/brine shrimp.

[Elegance Coral]

I LOVE IT! HE'S COMING OVER THE TOP OF THE DISH NOW. GREAT JOB!!!!!!!!!!!

[jason412]

Thanks I had to turn the lights off early today so that the tank didnt rise above 80 degrees so I didnt get a pic of it again later on like I hoped, it may have been bigger .I also just redid all the plumbing on the tank since what I had it as before was just a makeshift setup so that I could get all of the survivors in there. Since I have my sumps in the basement which even in the summer is 65 degrees or so, it usually keeps the tank temperature stable. Usually is 78.5 up and downstairs. But today it was exceptionally hot so I didnt wanna take the chance with the plumbing all torn apart and no water flowing to keep the temperature down. It got as high as 80.1 but for a 95 degree day I dont think it was that terrible. Nothing seemed to mind it atleast. I also moved the elegance a little more into the middle of the container just to give it a little more room while it was a little retracted after the lights went out. It never really closes anymore in fact I woke up at 3am last night because I thought I heard the baby and checked on it and it was like 2/3 the size of what it is normally. Oh I remembered I wanted to ask how are your elegances doing Elegance Coral? I was looking at the pics you posted again and the one which was in the worst condition really seemed like it wants to get better.

[Elegance Coral]

Thanks for asking.
I lost 4 of the more severely damaged corals in the over heating event about a month ago. Since then I bought one just because it was very healthy and I couldn't pass it up. I bought 3 more from my LFS that were in very bad shape. Completely sunk back into the skeleton. The owner talked me into getting them because he knew I could bring them back, or he knew they would die in his tank. I paid $25 a piece for them, $75 for 3 Elegance corals. They are expanding more and more every day and I got them to eat yesterday. The 4 that survived the over heating were set back quite a bit. They are coming back pretty quick though. Everyone in the tank is eating and improving. I have no fear of losing any of the corals I have. The only problem is having the patience to give them the time they need to heal and grow. I am taking pics and video taping their progress. I will be posting updates as soon as I find the time.

Good luck and keep us posted on your success. Maybe you should post pics of your success on that other sight? The more people that see how its done the more Elegance corals we can save.

[jason412]

Alright soon as I get some free time Ill go make a new post at the other site. Ya thats what I was afraid of yesterday letting the tank temperature rise too high. Sorry to hear that .I know you all must be sick of my not so great camera work haha. Well I figured Id try my hand at posting some pics I took and changed some of the settings. These pics were taken at 11am when the VHO's first came on. The frogspawn in the pic is a frag I got for 15 bucks at the foster smith frag swap 2 years ago and now it has about 9 heads with 3 babies. It gets way bigger than the pic as well but thought it would be kinda cool to do a morning/evening shot of them both so I can keep practicing haha. One of the heads actually completely died I thought and then out of the blue it is completely regenerating and taking back over the skeleton. It was on the bottom of the colony and I think it declined due to not getting enough light so now that it is situated better in the new tank its really happy.

[jason412]

Heres pics from this evening. I also posted on the other site like you said. I didnt include as much detail but I think it serves its purpose.





This thing is getting bigger and bigger every day.

[Elegance Coral]

WOW! Nice job. He looks real happy right where he is. My wife just pointed out to me that this is an Aussie Elegance. He should do very well. Are you feeding it?

[jason412]

Yep feed him silversides and it also eats the mysis/brine shrimp I feed the fish. I thought it maybe it wouldnt eat the mysis/brine but it does.

[jason412]

Well heres an update. Still going strong and looking beautiful. Heres a pic right after I fed it silversides. I would have gotten a picture with it full blown but didnt have time. One thing I think I have noticed is that the green color in the coral has become brighter.

[jason412]

This was at 11AM right when the VHOs come on. I also accidently bumped the edge of the elegance with my hand earlier and noticed it was still really sticky so I fed it again and it ate krill. I figured if it wasnt hungry it would spit it out, but it ate the 2 pieces on the one side in a matter of a minutes. The other side I guess wasnt hungry since it did spit out the other 2 pieces. I believe you can see the side that ate as it isnt quite as open as the other side. It seems whenever it eats it doesnt quite get as large as it usally does until its done digesting. Then it returns to its normal size. I was feeding it twice a week but now thats 2 days in a row.

EDIT: See in this shot you can see the left portion of the coral is starting to look ill.


and heres my newest addition my Achilles Tang straight out of the quarantine tank. Seems very happy and healthy. Hes such a pig he cant wait for me to put the food in the tank so half the time he ends up eating out of my hand.


Sorry again for the blurry photos....still havent mastered my camera yet.

[Elegance Coral]

You aren't feeding it grocery store food are you? Sometimes Elegance corals won't expand fully for a day or two while they are digesting their meal. When they are through digesting their meal they will begin to expand very large. The only time I have seen an Elegance poo within hours of feeding is when the food is to big or there is something else wrong with it like grocery store food. Could the food be freezer burnt? You are thawing it out, right? I had to ask, I have a friend that was having trouble with his Elegance so he showed me how he feeds it and he was giving it rock hard frozen shrimp.

[Sndwave80]

Nice find!