Background
I came home from work today and was treated with my nightmare. One of my favorite coral, the elegance contracted the "Elegance Coral Syndrome". So I'm making this post regarding the treatment that I'll do and the results, fingers crossed, as a reference people who are having the same problem. I have had this elegance coral for around 2 weeks, its been at my LFS for the last month.
So in case you never heard of it Elegance Coral Syndrome or ECS is a "disease" which only elegance coral seem to get. And from what I've heard its pretty much a downhill slope after the signs shows up. At least for me the early sign included inflated oral disk and deflated tentacles in addition its hard to tell but I think their mouths are also open. I'll put this guide in chronological order and update it as I go.
Since know no one has a solid idea of what is the cause of this disease I'm trying an experimental treatment. So this is my attempt that throwing a hypothesis out there.
Observation
To be clear I'm no marine biologist so my understanding of corals and their immune system is very limited. However, I think I have narrowed it down to two possible hypothesis.
1. Infection: There are 2 main facts supporting this hypothesis, firstly and most compelling is the fact that when an uninfected elegance comes into contact with an infected elegance there seems to be some unseen transfer that cause the uninfected elegance to soon be infected. Secondly, is based on my experience with anemone especially BTA infection. Sadly I don't have any pictures for comparison but if someone told me that their BTA has a very inflated oral disk but stringy tentacles I would immediately point to an infection in my experience. In fact I don't think and have never seen a BTA exhibit similar symptom unless its under infection, and in the early stages of an elegance coral infection similar signs are shown. However, one thing that seems to go against this fact is the fact that sometimes it seems to occur out of nowhere after 6 months or a year or keeping an elegance coral suddenly the sign appears. This could be contributed by from contamination such as water from the LFS when new live stock are added, also how come there are virtually no specimen in the wild that is afflicted with this? If a healthy, well established specimen in a tank with no predator or stress all of the sudden falls victim to the disease how come this does not happen in the wild?
2. Internal Damage: Again this theory has both evidence for both for and against. Firstly, the supporting evidence, I think the strongest evidence comes from the fact that sometime this syndrome seemingly appears out of thin air, which may point to some change causing internal damage. Another is the trend that strong light exposure seems to be associated with this syndrome. Lastly from what I have read elegance coral once was a very hardy coral that all of the sudden over the past few years began to show sign of these syndrome. Many associate this with the fact that only elegance from Indonesia seems to be afflicted. However, I have seen conflicting report regarding this especially in my case because mine is FROM Australia. I think that it might have something to do with the LEDs that has become very widely use in recent years. Since LEDs tend to be more focused and less diffused than T5 and Metal halide, this might prove to be deadly for the elegance coral. If someone has some experience with lights other than and LED and ECS you input would be greatly appreciated!
Treatment Plan
Since I'm not quite sure what is the cause of this issue I'll try a variety of treatment and hopefully one will work.
From my experience with LPS coral my bubble coral once suffered from slow flesh recession and no matter what I dip whether iodine or coral RX nothing worked. It was so bad at one point that more than 50% of the coral was dead. With holes punching through the flesh. As a last resort I dipped it in fresh water for 15 minutes. I'm not gonna lie, but for around a month after that it looks like a decaying mold. But surely enough it recovers and is bigger now.
So I'm going to dip my elegance in fresh water for 10 minutes with iodine added in. Then I'm going to isolate him to into a 40 gallon emergency hospital tank linked to my main display. I've removed the lights in case the cause is due to over exposure to light.
If this doesn't work within a week, I'll move on to a antibiotic cocktail in my QT tank and dose amoxicillin and penicillin.
December 5, 2019
The day after I brought the elegance home. Dip acclimate for 1 hour. Placed in the shade. Accept food readily, sticky tentacles. Prior to bringing him home I actually had my eyes on this guy for more than a month. So he's been sitting in my LFS coral tank for the last month or so.
December 8, 2019
Unfortunately I don't have a picture however my blue damsel was nipping at the tentacles so I moved him next to an BTA with 2 tomato clown. I was hoping that since they were very territorial no fish would bother it. And surprisingly I did work. He was open and super happy.
December 11, 2019
Up to this point I had been feeding him a piece of krill every 2 days or so and I noticed this weird brown mass, I assume it was a digested piece of krill. It may very well be but I'm just documenting everything in case someone faces something familiar.
December 15, 2019
I don't have pictures here either so you will just have to trust me lol. I was trying to link up my main 200 gallons display tank with my 40 gallons soon to be seahorse tank. So there was a change in salinity from 1.22 to 1.23. And also an increase in light where the elegance was since I accidentally forgot to move my LED back into place. Although I was not a huge increase I think it might be worth mentioning.
December 16, 2019
I came home from work around 12:30 pm and I saw my elegance displaying a classic signs of the disease. Inflated oral disk and shrunken tentacles, however I would mention that the tentacles remain sticky.
I wasn't sure did someone disturbed it or something so I sat there and watch for an hour. I saw that it went through a cycle of tentacle inflation halfway before deflating and looking like that again. I left it alone until 4 hoping that it would get better, I even moved the lights back to their normal position. However, there was no change. The oral disk was inflated and had a really tight water balloon consistency. I know this might be controversial but not being a person who likes to wait I decided to treat it.
After the fresh water dip I noticed a few arthropod that had fallen off the elegance coral
And here is the Elegance in its new temporary home one hour after the dip. There were white mucus secreted during the first 20 minutes but that has seem to calm down and the elegance seems to reopen a bit.
I'll keep updating this post daily or more often if I have time as future references. If anyone have any comments or advice please post! If not for me then as future references!
I came home from work today and was treated with my nightmare. One of my favorite coral, the elegance contracted the "Elegance Coral Syndrome". So I'm making this post regarding the treatment that I'll do and the results, fingers crossed, as a reference people who are having the same problem. I have had this elegance coral for around 2 weeks, its been at my LFS for the last month.
So in case you never heard of it Elegance Coral Syndrome or ECS is a "disease" which only elegance coral seem to get. And from what I've heard its pretty much a downhill slope after the signs shows up. At least for me the early sign included inflated oral disk and deflated tentacles in addition its hard to tell but I think their mouths are also open. I'll put this guide in chronological order and update it as I go.
Since know no one has a solid idea of what is the cause of this disease I'm trying an experimental treatment. So this is my attempt that throwing a hypothesis out there.
Observation
- Since there are people reporting this disease months or years into keeping them successfully and virtually no specimen in the wild seems to be afflicted, it maybe stress related, especially environment such as flow or light, (all of which a larvae Elegance coral can choose).
- Having pretty much the same anatomy as a sea anemone, they seem to be on the surface demonstrate similar behavior when an infection occurs. Inflated oral disk, deflated or "stringy" tentacles. Of these anemone I have had experience successfully treating them with antibiotics. Which to me despite lacking evidence via Koch postulates, greatly supports the idea of an infection of sort.
- To further support the infection hypothesis, an experience done early, shows that ECS indeed is contagious. Ill post the link here its a very good read. (http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-01/eb/index.php)
- The white mucus secreted by the elegance coral. I believe that there maybe a sort of "pus" for the corals. Secretion to removed waste or infection just like in human.
- There seems to be a trend of ECS and light exposure...
To be clear I'm no marine biologist so my understanding of corals and their immune system is very limited. However, I think I have narrowed it down to two possible hypothesis.
1. Infection: There are 2 main facts supporting this hypothesis, firstly and most compelling is the fact that when an uninfected elegance comes into contact with an infected elegance there seems to be some unseen transfer that cause the uninfected elegance to soon be infected. Secondly, is based on my experience with anemone especially BTA infection. Sadly I don't have any pictures for comparison but if someone told me that their BTA has a very inflated oral disk but stringy tentacles I would immediately point to an infection in my experience. In fact I don't think and have never seen a BTA exhibit similar symptom unless its under infection, and in the early stages of an elegance coral infection similar signs are shown. However, one thing that seems to go against this fact is the fact that sometimes it seems to occur out of nowhere after 6 months or a year or keeping an elegance coral suddenly the sign appears. This could be contributed by from contamination such as water from the LFS when new live stock are added, also how come there are virtually no specimen in the wild that is afflicted with this? If a healthy, well established specimen in a tank with no predator or stress all of the sudden falls victim to the disease how come this does not happen in the wild?
2. Internal Damage: Again this theory has both evidence for both for and against. Firstly, the supporting evidence, I think the strongest evidence comes from the fact that sometime this syndrome seemingly appears out of thin air, which may point to some change causing internal damage. Another is the trend that strong light exposure seems to be associated with this syndrome. Lastly from what I have read elegance coral once was a very hardy coral that all of the sudden over the past few years began to show sign of these syndrome. Many associate this with the fact that only elegance from Indonesia seems to be afflicted. However, I have seen conflicting report regarding this especially in my case because mine is FROM Australia. I think that it might have something to do with the LEDs that has become very widely use in recent years. Since LEDs tend to be more focused and less diffused than T5 and Metal halide, this might prove to be deadly for the elegance coral. If someone has some experience with lights other than and LED and ECS you input would be greatly appreciated!
Treatment Plan
Since I'm not quite sure what is the cause of this issue I'll try a variety of treatment and hopefully one will work.
From my experience with LPS coral my bubble coral once suffered from slow flesh recession and no matter what I dip whether iodine or coral RX nothing worked. It was so bad at one point that more than 50% of the coral was dead. With holes punching through the flesh. As a last resort I dipped it in fresh water for 15 minutes. I'm not gonna lie, but for around a month after that it looks like a decaying mold. But surely enough it recovers and is bigger now.
So I'm going to dip my elegance in fresh water for 10 minutes with iodine added in. Then I'm going to isolate him to into a 40 gallon emergency hospital tank linked to my main display. I've removed the lights in case the cause is due to over exposure to light.
If this doesn't work within a week, I'll move on to a antibiotic cocktail in my QT tank and dose amoxicillin and penicillin.
December 5, 2019
The day after I brought the elegance home. Dip acclimate for 1 hour. Placed in the shade. Accept food readily, sticky tentacles. Prior to bringing him home I actually had my eyes on this guy for more than a month. So he's been sitting in my LFS coral tank for the last month or so.
December 8, 2019
Unfortunately I don't have a picture however my blue damsel was nipping at the tentacles so I moved him next to an BTA with 2 tomato clown. I was hoping that since they were very territorial no fish would bother it. And surprisingly I did work. He was open and super happy.
December 11, 2019
Up to this point I had been feeding him a piece of krill every 2 days or so and I noticed this weird brown mass, I assume it was a digested piece of krill. It may very well be but I'm just documenting everything in case someone faces something familiar.
December 15, 2019
I don't have pictures here either so you will just have to trust me lol. I was trying to link up my main 200 gallons display tank with my 40 gallons soon to be seahorse tank. So there was a change in salinity from 1.22 to 1.23. And also an increase in light where the elegance was since I accidentally forgot to move my LED back into place. Although I was not a huge increase I think it might be worth mentioning.
December 16, 2019
I came home from work around 12:30 pm and I saw my elegance displaying a classic signs of the disease. Inflated oral disk and shrunken tentacles, however I would mention that the tentacles remain sticky.
I wasn't sure did someone disturbed it or something so I sat there and watch for an hour. I saw that it went through a cycle of tentacle inflation halfway before deflating and looking like that again. I left it alone until 4 hoping that it would get better, I even moved the lights back to their normal position. However, there was no change. The oral disk was inflated and had a really tight water balloon consistency. I know this might be controversial but not being a person who likes to wait I decided to treat it.
After the fresh water dip I noticed a few arthropod that had fallen off the elegance coral
And here is the Elegance in its new temporary home one hour after the dip. There were white mucus secreted during the first 20 minutes but that has seem to calm down and the elegance seems to reopen a bit.
I'll keep updating this post daily or more often if I have time as future references. If anyone have any comments or advice please post! If not for me then as future references!
