This is the actual colony you will receive. It is around 9cm in this photo. It may take some time to settle before your coral attains this final size. Elegance corals prefer moderate light and moderate flow. It is important to be testing and maintaining dKH, Magnesium & Calcium levels in order for this to thrive
Elegance Corals Care Guide
Elegance corals (Catalaphyllia jardinei) are a much loved species amongst aquarists - with their long flowing tentacles they add movement to what can sometimes be a fairly static reef. It isnt just us that think their wavy long tentacles looking appealing unsurprisingly Clownfish will sometimes take to Elegance Corals as an Anemone surrogate. The big difference is Elegance corals will not roam around your aquarium and sting things or get sucked into circulation pumps as they go.
There are two different types of Elegance available from Australia a wall Elegance and a cone Elegance. These descriptions are referring to their skeletons. Wall Elegance are collected from much deeper waters where they grow in massive colonies that are cut during collection. This leaves them with flat edges and a rectangular (albeit it slightly wibbly) shaped skeleton. Cone Elegance are generally collected from shallower waters where the entire skeleton is intact. Both in our experience are as hardy as each other so long as water parameters are kept stable as is the case with all hard corals.
Stable parameters are the key to success with all hard corals. Elegance Corals are classed as a LPS or Large Polyp Stony. Whilst they look confusingly soft and flowy, underneath all those tentacles is their calcium carbonate skeleton. In order to grow they need for Calcium, dKH & Magnesium levels to be stable. As they grow they will use up these elements so testing and dosing either manually or with a calcium reactor/doser is essential. Other important parameters to monitor are Phosphate and Nitrate. Both of these need to be kept on the lower side, but not at zero. Elegance Corals do not thrive in an extremely low nutrient water.
Our Elegance corals are kept in a shadier position in the fish house and are fed regularly with EasyReefs Easy LPS and Vitalis LPS pellets. They can expand to quadruple their skeleton size so it really is worth giving them plenty of room to stretch out. If your tank has particularly strong lighting it is worth ensuring that you acclimate the coral to the light slowly over a period of weeks/months. Always start them off in a shady spot, out of direct lighting to avoid bleaching.
