Elegance Coral
Name: Catalaphyllia jardinei
Care Current Lighting
Origin: Indo-Pacific
Hard Low Bright
A few years ago, this used to be among the hardiest of the corals, but this has changed recently in the hobby and many of the newer ones do not last past a few months in most aquaria. Some conjecture that this is due to the fact that this coral has been overfished in its previous shallow water collection zone, and now are being collected from deeper waters. The newer coral varieties usually have more purple and thinner "tentacles", and are reputed to be less hardy. Articles about this phenomenon have been written up on Reefs.org and some other sites. They are beautiful corals and this is a pity. They fluoresce bright green and do have a mouth, so they need to be fed (usually, BBS works well). They also have a very light sting and should not be kept immediately neighboring other corals, which they will bother all the time. I have also noted that my yellow tang has a preference for picking at the mouths of my two elegance corals, and do find this to be problematic. Buy them with caution and research first, I wish I had done more of it before I purchased mine, though both are alive and seem well so far.
Contributed by Cecilia Chen