Some of the membership may know that the Elegance Coral was the coral that got me "into the hobby" so to speak. At the sight of it's stunning colors and structure, I was hooked and had to have a reef tank with one in it. Early on in my reefkeeping my desires were thwarted, and I lost two specemins to what was then hypothesized by Eric Borneman as an infections pathogen/syndrome. A well-known and well-written conservationist and coral taxonomist, Borneman began a study of Elegance corals to attempt to discover the nature of the species' low survival rate around the turn of the century.
He's finally completed his initial study with some very interesting findings. He offers a tentative name as Elegance Coral Syndrome (ECS) and provides data to show that these corals clearly are infected by some pathogen/disease. Although he claims more work is needed to truly confirm his findings, he believes the disease to be the result of a bacterial infection and the production of microscopic green rods within the tissues of the coral. These two pathogens in conjunction with each other seem to attack the coral from within, killing its zooxanthellae and puncturing its own nematocysts inside its own tissue. As a result the coral decays from the inside out and slowly dies.
The good news though is that these pathogens cannot apparently live long without a host and signs of infection are easily observed and avoided. While this article is a very long and quite technical read, I'd heavily suggest it for anyone planning on keeping one of these magnificent corals. Finally some light is shed on this situation.
He's finally completed his initial study with some very interesting findings. He offers a tentative name as Elegance Coral Syndrome (ECS) and provides data to show that these corals clearly are infected by some pathogen/disease. Although he claims more work is needed to truly confirm his findings, he believes the disease to be the result of a bacterial infection and the production of microscopic green rods within the tissues of the coral. These two pathogens in conjunction with each other seem to attack the coral from within, killing its zooxanthellae and puncturing its own nematocysts inside its own tissue. As a result the coral decays from the inside out and slowly dies.
The good news though is that these pathogens cannot apparently live long without a host and signs of infection are easily observed and avoided. While this article is a very long and quite technical read, I'd heavily suggest it for anyone planning on keeping one of these magnificent corals. Finally some light is shed on this situation.
/www.elegancereef.com/magazin/broj2/...anceproject.htm
