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This is a bit of a teaser, but I finished examing all the elegance corals donated by aquarists to determine why they have poor survival. After examining all specmens, and pending the results of electron micorscopy work, I have seen what appears to be a number of conditions affecting the tissues, two of which stand out remarkably. I have finished taking the microscopy images, and will select those which best define the variations seen, and will be consulting next week with some histopathologists to discuss what I have found. Initially, I believed that the presence of fungal filaments were the most common and likely pathogen or entrance for other pathogens. Now, I feel otherwise. i will not make any further comments until I have seen and/or done electron microscopy and collaborated with other experts in the field. However, the microscopy has been fascinating and there appears to be at least one, perhaps two, common threads going on with these corals. I will be posting photos and further commentary here, at Reef Central where members helped fund this work, and on my website www.ericborneman.com hosted by Reefland.com
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Eric Borneman
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| I am assuming the problem with this coral is also effecting the wild stock as well? If so, I have not seen it yet in my little slice of the pond thankfully. Am very intrested in reading your results as I am sure the rest of the hobby is as well. Knowing the pathogen would lead to a treatment I hope, and in time to save as many effected specimens as possible. Guess I should wait for you to publish your findings huh?...lol Chuck
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You have me on the edge of my seat, I have an elegance that has been in my tanks for 18 months now. I am very eager to see what conclusions you come to about the mysterious elegance sickness. It seems so mysterious, to bring the issue into the light and find a possible cure would be a HUGE step! Keep up the good work Eric!
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Thanks - I'm going to try and have photos up today.
Charles - I have never seen it in the wild - only shortly after collection at an exporter. All areas we explored with coral collectors had only healthy colonies. I think its prevalence in the field is pretty low, but who knows? We are talking about a huge potential range and we were only in a small area (even if it was a major collection region).
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Eric Borneman
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| That is some good news at least for the wild stock, taking into consideration though that the area you were in, and the area that I am in are relatively small as you mentioned. This species is fairly common here and there have been many times I have seen what I thought was a huge anemone out in the sand only to approach it and go "ah, just another elegant", which by the way, the colonies can be what I would say is huge. (night stand or larger sized) In fact, ever since you first put out the call for specimens, I could not help but to look closely at each specimen for any signs of it being in trouble, while of course looking for a suitably sized one for my tank as well, which only took me a year, I can just never bring myself to frag any coral on the reef, if I can not collect the entire piece, I take a pass on it. oh, and am also sitting here on the edge of my seat as well. Its been such a long on going mystery. Chuck
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So, I have uploaded a photo gallery of images to ericborneman.com, but I am having the webmaster create a link for it from the main page. I am not familiar enough with the way this protocol works yet to do it - web design unsavvy person that I am. So, hopefully it should be up soon. I will have an article that describes the images I chose to illustrate various interesting things I found and this is only a small sample of the hundreds of images taken that serve to best illustrate common threads and unusual things in a few samples. Ten points for those who guess correctly what I am showing without explanation!
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Eric Borneman
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Eric: So our donations have been well spent! Glad to see that you are at least close to determining what has been affecting these corals. BTW, I went on your site but could not find any link to those pictures??
My suspicion, after reading your threads & speaking with you, would be a primary infection, possibly bacterial in nature, rapidly followed by a secondary infection by an opportunistic pathogen(s). 
Great work my friend!!
Steve
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Can't find the pictures.
Mark
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Scott said he would have it linked by tonight. Also, the titles will be giveaways, so I have to retract the 10 point bonus offer. I am burning a Cd of the images and sending to some other histopathologists to confer. After that, it time to do some trials on treatments. The tissue, fwiw, gets really messed up over the progression of this condition, and it is no wonder that they are hard to save once it starts. Many had almost a total lack of cellular architecture.
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Eric Borneman
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The link has been added to Eric's homepage on the left hand side.
Eric's Homepage
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