Good sponge, or bad sponge ?

[tenurepro]

Greetings - I have these sponges growing in my overflow and in the crevices of my rock work in my 6 year old Reefer 250.

i am in the process of setting up a new tank and I am debating about transferring some of this in my new build ?

i always assumed that sponges in reef tank are beneficial. Also recent scientific research indicates that sponges play an important role in nutrient cycling in natural reefs.

However, there is these article by jake Adam’ on reef builders that suggest that sponges are ‘bad’. I dont see him reference any research that backs up his point of view so it is hard to know if it is simply his opinion, or if it’s evidenced based advice

Keep Sponges OUT of Your Reef Tank! | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Sponges are some of the most amazing, interesting and almost alien creatures found in many marine habitats but one place they don’t belong, is in a reef tank. This statement is not a popular viewpoint…

reefbuilders.com

Five Reasons Sponges Are BAD For A Coral Reef Aquarium | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Sponges are some of the most remarkable life forms that we can encounter in the ocean. These resilient and diverse ‘creatures’ are not quite single celled, not quite organisms, but colonies of single…

reefbuilders.com

so any ideas about if sponges in general, and my sponges on particular, are beneficial or detrimental in a reef tank ?

 

[sixty_reefer]

Most likely his personal openion I’d keep as many life as possible

 

[DaJMasta]

The title/premise of the article is more clickbaity than the actual content of it, but he basically says sponges compete with corals for some things and for that reason he considers them a pest. While it's true what they eat/pull from the water column has some overlap with corals and that space a sponge occupies could theoretically contain a coral, I think the argument is pretty weak and removing them entirely could actually cause problems in a well established tank - plus they would just grow back in time. I don't think there's evidence that sponges in reef tanks use chemical warfare to keep corals away from them, and in the wild there are a number of encrusting corals (zoanthids, for example) that just grow all over sponges anyway.

Perhaps the less glamorous title would have been be "Sponges are fine but remove them if you want to put a coral there", and there are things sponges eat/use that corals largely don't, as well as locations like this one or in shady spots of most tanks aren't really ever going to be suitable for corals, so I would take the opposite stance of his article's premise - sponges are fine, and just like with corals growing too much or getting in the way, maybe you just need to prune them then.

Personally, I think that one looks neat - color and growth pattern. I would leave it, but perhaps trim it back so it doesn't risk blocking the overflow drainage.

 

[tenurepro]

The title/premise of the article is more clickbaity than the actual content of it, but he basically says sponges compete with corals for some things and for that reason he considers them a pest. While it's true what they eat/pull from the water column has some overlap with corals and that space a sponge occupies could theoretically contain a coral, I think the argument is pretty weak and removing them entirely could actually cause problems in a well established tank - plus they would just grow back in time. I don't think there's evidence that sponges in reef tanks use chemical warfare to keep corals away from them, and in the wild there are a number of encrusting corals (zoanthids, for example) that just grow all over sponges anyway.

Perhaps the less glamorous title would have been be "Sponges are fine but remove them if you want to put a coral there", and there are things sponges eat/use that corals largely don't, as well as locations like this one or in shady spots of most tanks aren't really ever going to be suitable for corals, so I would take the opposite stance of his article's premise - sponges are fine, and just like with corals growing too much or getting in the way, maybe you just need to prune them then.

Personally, I think that one looks neat - color and growth pattern. I would leave it, but perhaps trim it back so it doesn't risk blocking the overflow drainage.

Yeah, my thoughts as well. Very worrisome that someone that has a large platform can put very opinionated content that is not backed up by evidence. Thanks

 

[Spare time]

I like sponges. If you are worried, run some carbon