Patience won’t heal an elegance suffering from ECS, I believe. In fact, it appears we don’t understand enough about disease to stop it at all. Like BJD, it’s reportedly highly contagious. Indonesian species are known to spread ECS to those from regions less known for ECS (Australia).
While I believe corals can get ECS, and had spent a year or 2 researching as well as experiencing it myself. I think people get it confused with miss understanding the care for it. If the tanks has issues such as alot of detritus, no direct lighting, or improper flow, It will die off. I am not sure where ill my images went as I have posted in different sites. But here is some with ecd. This first pic is of an elegance which had ECD. Tips falling off, white sticking mucus like threading that binds the coral up. Puffy and tentacles retracted and starting to now shrivel up.
Same coral after time. Slightly shaded.
Again, coral direct light after moving it. I also had trimmed the base if the coral down a bit so the large disk would rest on glass more. Same one within final pic that is on my profile pic.
I had 3 at one point. All were doing this at different points. Each one happened when shadowed or detritus was bad as flow was never an issue.
I lost the blue elegance coral do to leaving in the shade. It did the exact same things. The other 2 lived fine. I gave one to a friend when I got a different tank and the last one traded in when I downsized my tank again. I am currently looking for an elegance frag that is small.
It took me about 5 other elegances before thess, so 8 in total, and lost all but last 2. 1 of those 8 also had gall crabs that it died from.
I had the eureka moment for detritus when a guy I know who kept many various elegances I was talking with. He already knew about detritus and we were discussing ECD do to the bubbling issue as well as ballooning, the sticky mucus like thread, the loss of tips and inflating of the entire polyp as well as complete retraction of the coral I had. During the conversation He said that one of his elegances wasnt doing well. When he went to inspect inside the pvc he had it sitting on was filled with detritus. After removing the detritus, the coral returned to normal. He kept his without shading and proper flow.
While there is ECD, I dont believe it is irreversible. I also dont think it is as wide spread in the hobby as people think. I believe it is caused by underlying conditions such as infection, parasites or water issues. This is why it looks like its spreading in a tank. Something with the water isnt correct and they are all effected. Why the guys only had 1 coral effected and not others was do to the pvc containing it and coral acting like a cap sitting on top containing most of it.
I also would notice the entire disk(polyp) I flate after water changes sometimes and return to normal hours to a day later.
I apologize for such a long post. But there is alot more information. I wish I could find the pics I did of the coral showing The ECD effects and then the recovery but images above seemed to do that a bit. Shile time isnt the all cure, it is what is needed after you can figure out the underlying problem in most cases.
