[mountainraised]

Hey people, I have a problem...

Lately I have had moved my LR around and found a colonial white sponge growing underneath the rock where my green polyps are. The sponge doesnt grow thicker than 1/2", but just spreads. Since then, the sponge has overgrown the underside of the rock and is slowly taking over the polys. The polyps shrink and then are covered by this invasive spongewithin a week. The sponge is white, and on the growing side, sends out leaders two to three inches long and the diameter of yarn. Wherever these leaders touch, thats where the sponge grows. Any suggestions on how to treat this problem? One more thing, I looked at the backside of my tank and there is a colony roughly three inches thick and the diameter of a softball. What to do?


Ryan

[naser]

kill the sponge.. take the rock out of water for a minute.

[newreefman1]

Can you move the polyps?
Sponges are great filter feeders and I wouldnt want to remove any sponges unless ultimately dangerous. IF necessary, you can just take the rock out, in a bucket of salt water, scrape the sponge off, and place it back in. Scraping will to the trick. It will be hard to find all colonies though as I have some I notice that are new almost every day with a green sponge that I hvae.

GL
JAson.

[mountainraised]

The problem with killing the sponge would be the ammonia spike it may cause by removing the rock from the water, and on the reply to the other question, is that I cant remove the polyps because the sponge is on the same rock. If I could just remember how to post a picture I could show you all what I mean...

Ryan

[naser]

you can kill a sponge without a increase of amonia. the sponge isnt that big to make a significent difference...

[mountainraised]

Good deal... Do any of you know how to post a pic? I cant remember, its been so long...

[newreefman1]

Agreed with naser that the ammonia or any parameter for that matter w*ould be affected by the death of a small sponge. Remove as much as possible if you are going to get rid of it.

You can post a pic simply by hitting the browse key below on the reply post screen where is says attach file.
Find the file on your system, select it and VIOLA you got it. Otherwise, if you have the pic posted on the web you can post the URL and check it out that way.

j

[mountainraised]

Ok, here it is... hopefully. Thanks all for helping me out. I will scrub tomorrow for sure.

[mountainraised]

One last thing, what you cant see in the pic is that the sponge on the bottom right of the rock has taken over every new shoot the larger polyps make, thus my problem arises. Do I have a legit reason to scrub? Probably, will it help, maybe. I will find out anyway. Once again, thanks.





Ryan

[newreefman1]

Remember..Its youre tank . and its just a sponge. If its causing harm to your tank, get rid of it.

I see the sponge in the pic. Just take out the rock, place it in a bowl with some salt water, scrape it off, throw away the water with the sponge junk, place the rock back in the tank and VIOLA a clean rock.
A sponge can however grow from the tiniest of colonies but one other thing, when you take a sponge out of water(most often) the siphons can and often get air in them, killing the sponge eventually too. Thats why if you have a sponge you want to keep, its reccommended that you place the container in water and "bag" the coral underwater never allowing the siphons to come in contact with air....its deadly.

Just another random tidbit for ya.

Good luck
Jason.