is it bad for my tank?????

[aquascaper82]

there's some sort of white stuff that looks like white sponge growing in my tank. the ones growing on the zoas look like it's sucking the life out of my zoas. they seem to be withering away or something. anyone know anything about this???

 

[MatthewScars]

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[ed4]

Hard to diagonse w/o pics, but does this growth have a bad, rotting smell?

 

[rookie07]

Sponges can do that. Pics would help

 

[aquascaper82]

fine geez here's pics

Ok so, is it bad??????? how do i get rid of it?

 

[aquascaper82]

i didn't notice a smell or anything... but my zoas are withering or something... where would that come from???

 

[kidninja]

pineapple sponge, you can pull them off if they are a nuisance

 

[Treef]

those shouldn't be messing up your zoas, they are a type of filter feeder...I only see them growing in dark areas like my sump and overflow. they come right off, even if you nudge them with your finger

 

[aquascaper82]

hmm then i think there's something else wrong with my zoas...

 

[Belwell]

pineapple/qtip sponge. They should not hurt your zoas or any other coral for that matter, but if they look bad its easy to pluck them off. Sometimes they will cover a dead polyp, etc.

 

[partobe]

is she talking about them or the other big white blob?

 

[Treef]

are the zoas new/old? is it happening to several colonies or just one?

 

[aquascaper82]

no not the big white blob that's just glue. the zoas have been in the tank for months now. they were all doing great the i noticed those sponges beginning to grow on some of my coral... started to grow on one of my sps's actually. now it's spread throughout the tank mostly on the zoas. but not on all of them.

 

[Chris Jury]

Agreed, those are calcareous sponge of some sort and are about as benign as a reef organism gets. Something else must be bothering the zoanthids.

cj

 

[MatthewScars]

I had those when I had a lot of nutrients in my tank. I added some cheato and did more WCs and they just went away after awhile. They are 100% harmless. GL with the zoas, everything in my tank is doing great, but i still have 2 zoa frags that just are doing terrible. Just happens, i guess.

 

[lfsmarineguy]

If you are getting a population boom of filter feeders than odds are there are more nurients in the tank than you think. The sponges aren't bad but their presence in huge numbers isn't necessarily a good sign.

 

[Wes]

Not necessarily a bad sign either. Corals eat the same stuff...

 

[lfsmarineguy]

An over abundance of them is a sign that there could be too much nutrients. Just because corals consume some of it doesn't mean it's good to have a lot of it.

 

[Wes]

Only an overabundance of bad "nutrients" are bad but not all "nutrients" are bad. A large population of filter feeding organisms does not always mean you have an "over abundance" of nutrients.

It could simply mean they like to consume whatever you are feeding your corals.

If sponges are thriving it is usually a good sign, IME.

 

[lfsmarineguy]

Populations will grow to meet food supply. If there is an abundance of food available a population will swell to a point where the food becomes less available and growth will plateau or eventually start to decline. If you were feeding exactly enough directly to the corals there would be no excess and thus no food for other inhabitants and nothing else would survive in the tank that fed on the same source. If there was a little extra than there would be a small population of filter feeders but their size and numbers would be limited by the available food. If there was a lot of extra food in the tank the filter feeders would grow larger and there would be a noticeable increase in their numbers. Filter feeders are beneficial and their presence is usually a good sign but if you have large numbers of them in the tank than odds are you have an abundance of food and you can cut back.

In my experience the tanks that are kept with lower nutrients like SPS dedicated tanks have a far less sizable and diverse population of filter feeders while the tanks with higher nutrient levels can support a significant array of filter feeders and microfauna.