Naughty fish! Crust. incomp. with "corals", stealing foods... elegance f'     02/09/09
Hello again WetWebMedia! Have you ever experienced the pain and agony when an irritating shrimp/crab walks to your coral and grab a piece of food?
Well, multiply that by a billion and you end up in my predicament. You must be thinking, what shrimp/crab I have in my tank, that is so annoying? Well, it does not have any legs, it is stream lined, blue and black. My cleaner
wrasse. Many people have found it very hard to keep this fish alive, let alone feed it. Well, I have the fortune/MISFORTUNE of having one that eats anything, anywhere and anytime. In fact, I see it eating more than it is
cleaning! Over the months, this fish has gone from bold to brazen. Now it steals food from ALL my corals. Doesn't matter if it steals, but when it does, it jerks and pulls the food out. I am afraid that this will damage my corals. Usually when I am feeding my corals, I do a light feeding to get my fish occupied. My 3 Torch, 2 Hammer and 1 Anchor coral usually finishes by then. As for my Bubble Coral, I feed them at night when my wrasse is asleep. The only coral I am having problems with is my Elegance Coral. They eat at snail's pace compared to my other Euphyllias. Even after the light feeding, it still has not finish it's food, and that is when my cleaner
wrasse will start pecking at it.
<Please research target feeding methods... you can use an inverted plastic container over the coral to keep the food on the coral an away from the fish.>
I really hate this so much! During the feeding of my Elegance, I practically have to stand there with a stick to fend off the wrasse! This can take as long as half an hour! Any idea why my Elegance is feeding so slowly? Could it be the food is too big? I noticed when i feed the tank with Mysis shrimp, the shrimp is too small to stick to the tentacles of the elegance.
70% of the time the mysis shrimps just float by, occasionally, a few get trapped in the tentacles, but i find it is a waste of energy to consume such a small shrimp, so I feed my Elegance with a small piece of shrimp bi-weekly. Sometimes, I stick my hand in to do some arranging, or scraping algae off my wall, the cleaner wrasse pecks and DRILLS at my hand, like as if it is going at me for revenge, because I did not allow it to steal food from my corals! Mega annoying. The only reason why it is still in my tank, and not in someone else's, or in the toilet bowl, is because it helps to clean my fish.
<Hmm, I do hope that common decency, respect for the animal and the responsibility you have to it, also factor into your decision not to off the poor creature. Please, if you must, give the fish to someone else.>
Now for the question, is there any way of keeping this horrid fish that i have the misfortune to ever keep, away from my poor Elegance, from which it has been consistently tugging food away, and I am afraid this would hurt the coral. Even my shrimps know when to draw the line! I have tried placing a box over it, but it is too big for any box,
<Then find a bigger box.>
and even so, my wrasse will find his way in trough the little gaps.
<Then find one with smaller gaps/no gaps.>
Should I change my feeding schedule at night? But I notice my Elegance goes to sleep at night, unlike my bubble coral.
<Sometimes the coral can be retrained to fee at night. You could try this.>
And any idea why it takes so long to eat? Is this normal? Or is there something wrong with it. It looks perfectly healthy, tentacles are sticky, so I guess it is alright....just...a slow eater. Like me ;D Appreciate all the help you have to share! :)Regards - Kai
<My friend, so many of your questions are ones which you should truly be researching on your own. These topics have been covered over and over in the FAQs pages on WWM, on forums, in books, etc. I do understand, and
appreciate that you're so excited about this hobby (I tend to get just as excited myself!). But it seems like you write to us almost every day now.
If you're just so excited that you need to chat about all these things with someone who shares your love, please join your local aquarium club (if you have one where you live- if not, start one!). And/or you could join a web
forum for aquariums. I monitor one called MASA, based in South Africa... and we have the WWM BB as well.
http://bb.wetwebmedia.com/
Cheers and happy reefing!
Sara M.>
Hi Sara, I forgot to search the WWM before sending you this mail. Apologies for that. Don't worry, I will not send my fish to his demise, I only said that for fun, and because I was a little annoyed by it. Will try to find a bigger box.....Maybe will have to modify it to fit it snugly over the coral, as there are rocks in the way too. Thanks
<No worries... I do hope all works out and that you to try out our forum. :-)
Cheers,
Sara>

Elegance Coral 11/26/03
Hello!
<Hi>
My husband and I have a question about our Elegance Coral.  Normally she has beautiful long green tentacles but today we noticed that she looks "swollen" so to say,  She almost looks an anemone-as in she is "closing" like an elephant ear when they are eating.  Her tentacles stick out of the center of the
"swollen' body about 1cm.  I've never seen her do this before.  Do you know what might be wrong?
<sounds like a feeding strategy... have you gone light on feeding it as of late? This is a very needy/hungry coral. They can/will starve slowly over months if not fed several times weekly>
Also, there is a tiny patchy of green "hair" coming up out of the sand, directly next to her.  It's only about 1cm high in a group no larger than a quarter.  Do you have any idea what in the world this maybe?
<tough to say without a picture. Do send for ID if you can>
Thanks!
<best regards, Anthony>