Elegance Coral?

[JY13131]

So what is the deal with these? How about in my nanocube with a couple of clownfish?

[dobejazz]

They are beautiful thats for sure. They don't have a great track record for sucess in the home aquarium.
Paraphased from E. Borenmans book Aquarium corals

Catalaphyllia
The strong nematocysts are present in their many tentacles and have the potental to snare small fishes, and are certainly capable of raising welts on hobbyist's forearm and hands.

also
Certain clownfish may adopt Catalaphyllia as a surrogate anemone. This may be detrimental to the coral; they are often rendered incapable of full expansion, becoming irritated and perish.

[JY13131]

Thanks

[leveldrummer]

from what ive heard, they were the big thing to have a few years back, and were really easy to keep, but something about over collection and how they are collected now, makes them harder to keep alive, (this is all what ive heard, no proof of anything)

if you can find an older one, that someone has had in their tank for a while, (about a year old maybe) and you can get a frag of it, it should be alot easier to keep alive. but wild caught ones being sold now arent doing so hot at all.

[Geoff]

yep, used to have a few back in the early 90's. pretty easy to keep. slap some lower powered MH's over the tank, keep your Ca and alk up, you were good to go. have not tried one lately, but have been afraid from hearing about how hard they have become.

G~

[ScruffyRubicon]

Eric Bornemann came to St. Louis a few months back and mentioned that there was a disease that was claiming the ones being sold in the US right now. He suggested against them, at least for now. He had some pictures through a microscope of the disease on the tissue.

[ScruffyRubicon]

He also mentioned that it spreads very quickly. He had one in one of his tanks that he had had for sometime that was disease free. He held another one for someone (for a few hours) and hurrily placed it in the tank with the other one instead of placing it in quarantine, and lost his soon afterwards.