Info on Cataphyllia jardinei

[Troy F]

Originally posted by Adam Censales on Fishnet:

Eric Borneman gave a talk recently discussing coral collection in Indonesia. He went out diving with the collectors to see where they were collecting our corals. Most of the Elegance, open brain (trachyphilia) and Euphylias (torch, hammer, etc) are being collected from fairly deep (30+ meters) soft bottom or patch reef locations.

Elegance and open brains from such locations exhibited solid bright green and solid red coloration. The same corals in shallower more brightly lit locations exhibited "mottled" color patterns.

You can use this information to guide you in the type of lighting to provide your coral. 250w MH is a lot of light for a coral collected from places like Eric described.

Another thing about elegance...

They used to be considered a very hardy beginners coral. In the last couple of years, that has changed, and new information suggests that a parasitic gall crab is likely the culprit. The crab burrows under the tissue of the coral, and irritates it.

The crab has been observed leaving "sick" elegance, and causing the same "sickness" in other large solitary polyped corals. The symptoms include a greatly expanded oral disc along with poor tentacle extension. Eventually the coral shrivels and dies.

As far as I know, no one has successfully removed one of these crabs and had the coral go on to survive.

I found this interesting and hadn't heard the theory.