White Stuff On Zoas: Sponge, Fungus??

[Nierika]

Can someone identify what this white stuff growing on my zoas is?

 

[Lovemyreef2015]

Looks like sponge growing over them. I would try to take a soft toothbrush to it.
Welcome to R2R

 

[Cary]

I don't know. It could well be a sponge. We come to R2R

 

[Nierika]

Thanks. I picked up the frag last night. I got stuck in a meeting, so by the time I got there a bunch of the polyps were closed. I figured it was just because the lights had been out. Looking back I feel like I probably made a bunch of noob mistakes. For one, buying frags is all relatively new to me and I don't know exactly what I should be looking for. It wasn't until I got the coral home that I realized they weren't attached to a rock, but 4 or 5 clams. Definitely wasn't expecting that. I'm not sure if I should let them be or try to get them off the clams and on to a frag plug. I'm worried about the clams dying in my tank.

Is it normal to stress out over every little thing when getting started? I try to read up and educated myself on as much as possible (it's a lot to take in!), but sometimes I think it might have the opposite WebMD effect where everything is sump cancer or some other horrible reef disease.

 

[Cary]

Good luck. Watch the clams very closely. They are hard to keep alive in an aquarium. If they die they will cause a lot of grief.

Maybe someone that has experience with them will pipe in.

 

[John3]

Those look like mussels. I have some huge turkey mussels that came on my live rock and they almost all pulled through some really horrible cycling conditions. They are filter feeders so that’s a good thing for the tank. If you have enough cuc and bacteria if one died it should be ok. If not enough it could cause an ammonia spike.

 

[wattson]

It is a Fungus,,remove colony to separate container and use turkey baster to blow off the rotten polyps,,and possibly need tweezer to get all remaining rotten tissue off of rock..Do an Iodine dip per the bottle recommendations for a Bacterial/Fungus dip..
Usually when polyps succumb to a white fungus like this,,it is best to remove the rotten ones as fast as possible..
Make sure you do all this work in a separate container with water from display..

 

[O.C.D.]

Powerheads are there best friend

 

[Nierika]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I pulled out the colony 2 days ago and used a toothbrush to try and clear the fungus off. When I did this it seemed like a lot of the polyps were melting/slimy. I remove all of the ones that were like that. When I came down this morning the fungus was covering the other half of the polyps. I pulled it out of the water and it was slimy and smelled rotten. I ended up tossing the whole thing.

So now that it is out of my tank, should be worried about it spreading to other corals? Is there anything I need to be doing in the meantime? Thank

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Not really, I had some when I made the mistake of ordering from Aquarium Depot, about 5 of my 8 zoas were infected and all died. I tried to remove the infected tissue same as you but it was pointless and I also threw away the whole thing. It never spread to the others, I image the tanks at Aquarium Depot must be vile to have that many infected with it (and still be fine to ship them out). It didn't spread to other colonies but it had and 100% mortality rate.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Not really, I had some when I made the mistake of ordering from Aquarium Depot, about 5 of my 8 zoas were infected and all died. I tried to remove the infected tissue same as you but it was pointless and I also threw away the whole thing. It never spread to the others, I image the tanks at Aquarium Depot must be vile to have that many infected with it (and still be fine to ship them out). It didn't spread to other colonies but it had and 100% mortality rate.

 

[Nierika]

Not really, I had some when I made the mistake of ordering from Aquarium Depot, about 5 of my 8 zoas were infected and all died. I tried to remove the infected tissue same as you but it was pointless and I also threw away the whole thing. It never spread to the others, I image the tanks at Aquarium Depot must be vile to have that many infected with it (and still be fine to ship them out). It didn't spread to other colonies but it had and 100% mortality rate.

I ended up pulling the colony the next day. They smelled worse than protein skimmer juice. Luckily nothing spread to my other Zoas, but it did make me nervous for a while.

Lesson learned. Keep your excitement and enthusiasm in check. Don't rush into a sale and also really pay attention to the person's tank that you're buying from. Since then, I bought a few frags off people that have had their tank up and running for 15+ years. What a difference. I'm seeing the importance of observing their entire setup and asking lots of questions. There's so much to learn in this hobby!

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

There really is a lot to learn, my zoas are happy and thriving now and I'm really trying to keep them that way, its not easy. I can't smell, I guess I never thought about a scent from them, thats pretty cool actually (didn't know skimmer juice smelled either ha ha ha). Do you have any pics of the rest of the tank?

 

[Nhjmc]

I’ve got something similar going on looks like a sponge? I e got a lot of what I believe is sponges (pink white and black) growing in my tank On some of the live rock is this bad?