My new pieces.

[Samper]

After reading quite a bit about Catalaphyllia jardinei I decided to take one into my care. I searched around and found quite a few but many looked to be very unhealthy. I found this specimen at a nice $40 price and put a hold on it. The guy held it 2 weeks for me and I checked on it more than a few times during that period. The tissue is growing up over the side and it doesn't have any of the white mucus anywhere on the skeleton. I placed it on the sandbed of my 75gallon in the bottom left corner. It gets enough current to keep it swaying about but not anything that I would call turbulent conditions. I'll start trying to feed it tomorrow. I'll get some better pics when I can get my moms good camera out but until then these will have to do.
Let me know what you guys think.

I also bought this "moon" coral that happens to be a red and green growing into a solid green. I like it but can't decide where to place it at the moment.

[Reefland]

That is a wonderful looking Elegance Chuck, good luck with it! It's positive to see it opened so nicely after such a short time.

[zhenya]

Good luck, Chuck!
It is hard to tell if it is healthy or not just by looking at the picture. I really healthy speciemen usually has much longer tentacles but it is a moot point for now as it is just been placed in the tank. I sure hope you lucked out and it is indeed a healthy one. ;)

[Reefland]

I was going to mention as I think I've heard before, maybe someone could verify, that those with pink tips are typically a bit longer lived in captivity? Gene have you ever heard that?

[charlie]

Good luck, make sure you keep us updated on it's progress. I hope you can make a go of it. I've tried 2 of them and had absolutly no success. Here's to hoping!!!!

[zhenya]

I was going to mention as I think I've heard before, maybe someone could verify, that those with pink tips are typically a bit longer lived in captivity? Gene have you ever heard that?

Scott,

I can't in whole honesty say that I've heard that. I mean I did read something to that regard but I can't remember what color tips were mentioned, pink or purple.

[Samper]

Anthony mentions in his book of coral propagation that the ones that are brown tend to do better in captivity. The same can be said of the purple gonioporas from what I hear. I fed it today some finely chopped mysis and it readily accepted the food. The feeding response of this coral is amazing...very anemone like. It's looking good so far...not expanded too much but it was open today and tentacles were much longer it just wasn't blown up...I understand this to be a bad thing for it to be overexpanded. It has no mouth gaping or anything like that. It seems to have somehow sunken the skeleton down into the sand a little bit. The tentacles around the rim almost look like they're searching the sand.

[Samper]

Here are some updated pics. So far so good other than the leather still hasn't opened back up. I'm wondering if the placement of the Catalaphyllia jardinei has anything to do with it. They don't come close to touching but I know they don't have to to affect each other. I threw the ric pic in for no particular reason. Anyway enjoy the pics.

[zhenya]

Keep us updated, Chuck. So far the coral looks pretty good but I really like to know how it does in a long term. Does it accept food regularly? My last attempt at keeping this coral lasted about a month and a half, it ate and looked great as far as I could tell only to saccumb to whatever plagues this species.

[Samper]

It is accepting not only meaty foods but also flake and pellet foods that happen to fall on it.

[vtec si]

Nice corals Chuck! If you got that for $40 you got a deal. I can only find them here at my LFS for $70-$80 ea.

Good luck,
Martin

[Samper]

All was well until two days ago. There was a grayish/white film over the tissue keeping it from opening all the way. Things went exponentially downhill from there. I removed it from the system today and I won't try another one.

[zhenya]

Sorry to hear this,Chuck.
I too made a resolve not to try another one of this corals untill there is more information as to why this corals become so difficult to keep or a way to dip them or medicate them to get rid of this malady.

[AvianMan]

im jealous! I havent seen an elegance in my area LFS in years, let alone one that nice!

[charlie]

All was well until two days ago. There was a grayish/white film over the tissue keeping it from opening all the way. Things went exponentially downhill from there. I removed it from the system today and I won't try another one.

Hey, at least you tried.

[Poseidon]

Sorry to hear it went south on you Chuck. Just chalk it up to learning experience.

[Samper]

The crazy thing here is that I convinced the LFS to give me store credit for it. I spend a ton of cash in there and told him my problem and he gave me credit for the coral just for trying one out. He said he had been scared to try them and after my experience won't order any more. Pretty cool. I'll post later what I got in exchange for it.