najer
Valuable Member
Fresh water dip.
Elegance Coral Syndrome Diagnose and Treatment with Fresh Water Dip
- Thread starter OrionN
- Start date
- Tagged users None
Fresh water dip.
OP
OP
FWD only treat surface infection. Not bacterial, but small and tiny unicellular parasites like Protozoa, especially those without cell wall or exoskeleton.
Change from salt water environment to fresh water will cause the animal to absorb fluid due to osmosis resulting in lysis of the cell. Smaller the animal the higher the surface to volume ratio which result in higher toxicity to the animal.
Clams and larger corals can tolerate fresh water for a time. Short enough exposure will damage but not kill them but will kill SURFACE INFECTION pathogen. Internal infections will not be affected because these pathogen will not be expose to fresh water until the clam or coral died.
Healthy Elegance corals can tolerate at least 15 minutes FWD and healthy clams can tolerate at least 30 minutes. Sicken clams and Elegance coral may not be able to tolerate this length of time and may die from this stress.
Change from salt water environment to fresh water will cause the animal to absorb fluid due to osmosis resulting in lysis of the cell. Smaller the animal the higher the surface to volume ratio which result in higher toxicity to the animal.
Clams and larger corals can tolerate fresh water for a time. Short enough exposure will damage but not kill them but will kill SURFACE INFECTION pathogen. Internal infections will not be affected because these pathogen will not be expose to fresh water until the clam or coral died.
Healthy Elegance corals can tolerate at least 15 minutes FWD and healthy clams can tolerate at least 30 minutes. Sicken clams and Elegance coral may not be able to tolerate this length of time and may die from this stress.
nick0206
Active Member
Thanks.
By the way, about FWD. When I was just starting to work on corals and I only had soft corals (Xenia, mushrooms, parazoanthus, etc.), I don’t remember why, I needed to get all the live rocks out of the tank.
My son helped me, who mistakenly put all in a bucket with fresh RO water. It stayed there for about 10 minutes, until I realized from the coral reaction that something was wrong. All survived (mushrooms, carpeted sea anemone, tridacna, etc.) except Xenia.
I just shared my personal experience with the FWD.
Hi, came across your information on fwd and I wanted to try it for my yellow tip elegance. How often do you dip it? This worked well for my crocea with pinched mantle but dipped every other day or so for about a week and a half. Any help would be greatly appreciated.Elegance Coral, Catalaphyllia jardinei, is a LPS that is very beautiful easy and is one of my favorite LPS. Since early 2000, it was well known by reefers that Elegance coral is easy to care for, unless it contracted Elegance Coral Syndrome (ECS), a universally fatal disease with no known cure.
Elegance Coral Syndrome was coined in 2006 by Eric Borneman, a pioneer reefer who unfortunately no longer involves with reefing world, to describe this infectious disease of Elegance corals. He discussed about Elegance corals and this disease in detail in January 2008 issue of Reefkeeping, an online magazine published by ReefCentral.com. A link to this article attached below.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-01/eb/index.php
In this article, Eric recorded his observation of this disease as follow:
Eric also did contagious experiment and proof that this disease is indeed contagious, thus cause by infection. He also tried but fails to identify the pathogen and did not come up with any possible treatment. By 2008 virtually all imported specimens were infected with this disease and he recommended that we should no longer attempt to collect or keep Elegance corals because survival rate were dismal.
- Colony’s oral disk first start to swell
- Unexpanded fringe tentacles
- Coral secrete opaque white mucus like web
- Feeding response decline
- Tentacles no longer “sticky”
- Coral’s tissue eventually shrinks and coral dies
I don’t have as much experience as Erick, but in addition to Eric’s observation, I have the following observations:
I cannot help with draw parallel with Pinched Mantle Disease, a condition that I know very well. I like to experiment with treatment of ECS, but did not have a chance until recently. One of my friends, @alton a member here on Reef2Reef, bought an Elegance coral that ended up with ECS. As a last ditch effort to keep this coral alive, I recommended 15 minutes Fresh Water Dip (FWD). Alton’s Elegance did great and is on its way to recovered fully. I advised Alton to use 15 minutes FWD only for his Elegance coral since the soft tissue layer of Elegance coral is fragile and thin. Pre and post treatment of this Elegance coral attached below.
- Coral initially have localized evidence of disease on oral plate, which then spread to other parts.
- Coral secrete mucus as a response to infection
- Coral worsen with high light exposure and seem to improved, temporary with lower light level
- Coral looks better in AM, worsen as the photo period progress.
Pre treatment
Post treatment
Another picture a week later
Alton’s Elegance is on its way to recover fully. I will ask Alton to keep this thread update. I know that ECS have no known cure. If FWD is indeed a cure for ECS, this is a big step in helping us keep Elegance corals, a very beautiful coral, in our reef tanks.
I would like any reefers who have Elegance corals that were infected with ECS, and want to treat them with FWD, please post pre and post images of the corals, and keep update. Hopefully we can come up with a cure for, up to now, an incurable disease of a beautiful and hardy coral.
OP
OP
These treatments only need to be done once. You will need to put them back to a new condition where the disease is not present to keep them from getting reinfected.
OP
OP
If you don't have a choice, keep the clam or EC on one side of the tank, then put it on the opposite side after you do the water dip.
Sharkbait19
10K Club member
Hi, I purchased an elegance coral, not knowing too much about them, for my nano tank. After much research, I am simply scared crazy by this disease, and am stressing a lot over the fate of this beautiful coral. Does ECS happen often in reef tanks? It seems as though elegance coral is super easy to keep alive short of this one unavoidable thing. Is it as common as I am reading? Because right now I fear that my elegance coral is simply doomed to die.
OP
OP
Elegance coral is easy to keep other than when it got ECS. Now that you got an Elegance in your system, any new Elegance must be QT for 4 weeks first and make sure that it is OK before put it into your DT.
It is not unavoidable, just need to be careful when you add Elegance when you added them to your system.
It is not unavoidable, just need to be careful when you add Elegance when you added them to your system.
Sharkbait19
10K Club member
Four days, and mine got it. Pretty bummed. It was a nice piece. 
OP
OP
Did either of you try to FWD your elegance?
Sharkbait19
10K Club member
Not yet, but I may try to. I'm scared to do anything right now as I might screw it up.
Sharkbait19
10K Club member
Mine came back and it looks bigger than ever. Perhaps it doesn’t have ECS yet.
unfortunately, I simply don’t think that it will last long in my tank, and as much as it pains me to lose it, I am likely going to trade it back to the LFS, so someone of much more experience can keep it alive for a very long time.
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