Info on Elegance Coral    11/17/12
Hi,
I hope you can help me out a little bit here. I just have a two question for my Elegance Coral. 3 weeks back I bought a new Elegance coral, It did well for first week then half of the coral went retracted for day or two then inflated fully very nicely swaying tentacles stretched and inflated.
<Typical behavior>
week two went fine like that then couple of days back coral went retracted for two days again but it was inflating about 25% to its full size every now and then . Now for past two days it is inflating but 50%~70% of its maximum, is this its normal behaviour.
<Better for it to eventually re-inflate to full size, but not abnormal>
Second Question: Today evening I noticed the Coral sprayed out some white slimy / mucus particles from space between its skeleton and Flesh (disc of Tentacles) , and I noticed My Yellow Tang ate that slimy mucus thing, My Fairy Wrasse, and Yellow Tang slightly nipped on the coral as well.....  
Is my coral sick and what was that slime thing?
<Tissue... not good>
 if Toxic why would Yellow Tang feast upon it?
<Not toxic; perceived as food>
, I have also added some Seachem Phytoplankton twice in this span of time.
<For what purpose/s? Not a food...>
I have other corals that seem fine (Magnificent Anemone, Zoanthids, Mushrooms, Trumpet, Finger Leather Coral, Toadstool Mushroom, Xenia, Flowerpot, Frogspawn, Orange Sea Sponge)
<Mmm, well, these aren't all corals, and many are dangerously allelopathogenic... Not compatible. Could be an/the issue w/ your Catalaphyllia. Umm, read here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/cnidcompppt.htm
and the linked files above, till you grasp the gist...>
Fish: Pair of Clown Fish Normally Spawning every 3rd Week, 1-Yellow Tang(small 2"), 1-Fairy Wrasse.
SG: 1.024  PH:8.2  KH:9  Ammonia:0, NO2: 0, NO3: 10, PO4: 0.025, Calc: 400, Mag:1200, Temp:81F   lighting: MH 1x150w 1400K+ 2x20w T5 + 2x20w Actinic  (Tank Size:40G +15G sump)
Thanks
Anees
<Uhh, and read here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/elegance.htm
and all the Related FAQs files linked above re this species. Bob Fenner> 

Decline of An Elegance Coral?  3/30/06 Scott, <Scott here! Sorry for the delay in the reply.> Thank you very much for your quick response.  I was kind of wondering if the 20k bulbs might be an issue, but if they do turn out to be then I may slowly switch them out for 10k.  I have actually been more concerned about how deep the 175 watt bulbs will be able to penetrate vs. 400 watt.  What do you think? <They'll be fine for most corals in a 24" deep tank, IMO.> One other quick question about a Elegance coral I have.  I also have a 46 gallon bowfront tank with great water quality and everything else doing spectacular but my Elegance.  When I first got it for the first couple of weeks it opened up nicely but since then over about a months time it seems to be slowly shrinking and opening less and less.  It doesn't show any other signs of stress other then it keeps getting smaller and opens less and less. For about a week it would blow up like a balloon during the day, which I thought was a little abnormal also.  I did read that it is good to target feed Elegance, which I wasn't doing for the first month and tried to start doing a week ago but only seemed to worsen its condition.  Also, a friend of mine has beautiful large Elegance that he never target feeds and is doing wonderful.   Any ideas or suggestions about what I could do to hopefully improve it condition?  Is it savable or it slowly dying? Thanks again, your feedback very very helpful Jason <Well, Jason, these corals really do benefit from directed feeding. They are also susceptible to allelopathic "attacks" from other corals in your system, so they are really best suited for a monospecific display, as the only coral in residence. Feed them small foods (less than 1/4" in size) and keep the water quality high. Do make use of the vast resources here on WWM regarding the care of this coral. Good luck! Regards, Scott F.>

Catalaphyllia EMERGENCY Hi Bob!! Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU for the advice and the services you provide online. Its great to see someone actually responding to emails coz I know a lot of message boards and FAQ's don't! Big Thanks! My Catalaphyllia elegance coral seemed to be doing okay lately. but One day all of a sudden when I came home, it looked terrible!! All my water parameters are good (except nitrates a little high but I'm working on that ~ 20mg/l). I have been feeding it Mysis shrimp, probably not as much as I should be .. last time I fed it was about 5 days ago. I've had the coral for approx a month and a half now and it seemed to be doing okay - It's had its ups and downs (when sometimes it didn't look as good) but its never been as bad as this. << Is there anything else you have changed recently? >>   Here are some pictures, I apologize for them being so big .. I'm not 100% sure how to shrink them, u probably don't have to look through all of them (about 10 pictures) but I've included one picture of it when its looking healthy and 9 of it when its looking pretty bad. As you can see, some patchy parts are swollen while other patchy parts of it are all shriveled up. Some of the oral disks are swollen and almost see-through. http://photos.yahoo.com/catalaphyllia/ Its a fairly new tank. Other tank inhabitants are 2 clown fish, a tri colored damsel (not sure if that's what its called), a Radianthus anemone, leather coral, brain coral, Goniopora sp and a torch and daisy coral (I think that's what they're called - Euphyllias). Also, the coral is from Australia. (I'm located in Sydney) would you have any idea what could be the problem? I don't think its a lighting issue although I think it would like it better with better lighting. << Please describe your lighting set up. >> But I have had the coral for about 1 and a half months in the same conditions but its never been this bad before. << It makes me think it wasn't really thriving before, but just taking its time to get to this point.  I would recommend moving the coral in the tank.  Nothing to lose.  Also, did you get it straight from the ocean, or did it come from a friend or a store.  If the latter, I would be comparing your tank to what the previous tank was like. >> Thanks Wallace << Sorry I can't be of more help. Adam B. >>

Dear Bob, I'm having a problem with an elegance coral that I purchased recently. It seems to have been raised in half of an old clam shell or maybe it just grew that way, I don't know, but it's approximately 7 inches across not counting the curves. It never did open up fully when I placed it in the tank giving it plenty of room. We bought it locally from a reputable dealer and didn't travel but 30 minutes to bring it home. After about a week in the bottom of the tank, in moderate current and full light, a small portion of the animal at the far end seems to be falling out of it's skeleton. The rest of the animal stays pretty well withdrawn throughout the day and night now. I've placed it back in the quarantine tank. What is going on with this critter? We have a 125 gallon reef tank of R/O water with a skimmer, metal halides with two blue actinics set up 8 inches off the top of the tank with fans blowing through and a couple of power heads at either end of the tank. We put 190 lbs of cured and encrusted Marshall, Fiji and Tonga rock in it 6 weeks ago and never got a spike and we were told by several trustworthy shop owners that we may never get a spike. So we started stocking the tank. We have a Ritteri anemone with 2 Percula clowns, 5 green and 2 blue Chromis, 2 rock anemones, 4 assorted small leather corals, one Tridacnid maxima, a small bubble coral, a couple of open brains, 5 or 6 small mushroom corals, one red tree sponge, some Zoanthids and a pulsing xenia, an assortment of snails that I believe are getting stung by the anemones, a half dozen small hermit crabs, and I've seen at least one bristle worm. I try to keep the soft corals down stream from the hard corals. Temperature gets up to 80 degrees during the day and cools to 76-78 at night. ph fluctuates between 8.0 and 8.3. The calcium was staying right around 450 to 495 mg/l until the other evening when it dropped to about 345 mg/l. I have a drip of calcium hydroxide at night and dose with Seachem's Marine Buffer every other day. Alkalinity has averaged at 3.5 to 4 meg/l over the last several weeks. Specific gravity is 1.025, no ammonia, nitrites, nitrates or phosphates.  Could it be that this animal is splitting it's colony and do I need to provide some sort of home for the orphan? Your prompt response is greatly appreciated, Catherine Cyko >> Catherine, tomorrow I am going to write and send you a draft (to review and edit if you don't mind) re Catalaphyllia... this coral animal is a real heartbreak... not suitable for most reef set-ups... You will soon realize that it's natural history calls for being in horizontal settings (not vertical), in mud, in high organic nutrient concentrations, with no other stinging celled life about... I promise to send along my pending article on this family Caryophylliidae genus... sorry to be so cynical, it's just that so many of these Elegance Corals are lost due to... what? A lack of disclosure? A general lack of understanding of their needs? Anyhow, will send in a day or so. Bob Fenner, who says, in the meanwhile, if you can, move the specimen to a dirty tank with vascular grasses, like Turtle Grass (Thalassia) by itself... with high nitrates, phosphate... >>