- Joined
- May 17, 2020
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I'm not normally anti sponge. I've had all kinds bloom and die back since I started this tank, most recently a fairly good pineapple sponge bloom in the back chambers.
In the display I have a couple of these pinkish translucent sponges, and they didn't really worry me too much. As I said, sponges of different types have come and gone, but recently this one has decided it's not happy with the rocks and has started causing trouble with the corals. It's slowly choking out a blastomussa wellsi and last night I noticed that it's up in my King Midas zoas, too. There are a number of other corals on the rock with a mix of softies and LPS but I can probably remove the rock for surgery if that is the only option. There is another rock where a similar sponge has a montipora setosa surrounded but hasn't crossed the line from benign neighbor to invader yet. That rock would be a major ordeal to remove.
The sponge goes well into the rock. A sponge predator would be awesome (I have plenty to feed one) but research says that's an unlikely solution. Will scraping at them really make them spread? The tank is only 50g so not a lot of water volume to dilute any chemical solutions.
How do I save these corals? It sucks because they were doing so well. The blasto was even starting a new head. That's covered in sponge now.
In the display I have a couple of these pinkish translucent sponges, and they didn't really worry me too much. As I said, sponges of different types have come and gone, but recently this one has decided it's not happy with the rocks and has started causing trouble with the corals. It's slowly choking out a blastomussa wellsi and last night I noticed that it's up in my King Midas zoas, too. There are a number of other corals on the rock with a mix of softies and LPS but I can probably remove the rock for surgery if that is the only option. There is another rock where a similar sponge has a montipora setosa surrounded but hasn't crossed the line from benign neighbor to invader yet. That rock would be a major ordeal to remove.
The sponge goes well into the rock. A sponge predator would be awesome (I have plenty to feed one) but research says that's an unlikely solution. Will scraping at them really make them spread? The tank is only 50g so not a lot of water volume to dilute any chemical solutions.
How do I save these corals? It sucks because they were doing so well. The blasto was even starting a new head. That's covered in sponge now.