Is This Ball Sponge a Goner?

[george9]

Hi all!
First of all, I know the typical spiel - sponges are nearly impossible to keep and feed. Despite this, at the end of December I decided to try one. I feed phyto daily and blast it with frozen food juices and kick up microfauna in the sand for it but not sure it’s enough.

I had it placed wrong initially I think because recently there was a little brown algae on it, and now parts of it where the algae was sitting is dying I think. I should’ve been more on top of it keeping the algae off it :/

The same area will turn white every couple of days , and I’ve been trying to clip/scrape off the dead areas to give it a fighting chance. I’ve also moved it to much higher flow. It turns a white/clear color and almost looks like filaments hanging off the sponge. Reminds me if a sponge had skeleton almost.

I’ve attached a pic of it when it got the brown algae on it, and one pic from today where you can see the dying parts that I’ve been cutting off. Is this what a doomed/dying sponge looks like? Should I continue clipping/scraping the white/clear dying areas or am I making it worse?

Thanks!

 

[george9]

Here’s another view of the sponge, it really doesn’t look bad bad bad and the damage seems so localized but it’s no doubt not happy. Not quite sure how to proceed…leave it alone or keep intervening is the question

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Is it in a high flow area where nutrients can be carried to it?

 

[george9]

Is it in a high flow area where nutrients can be carried to it?

It wasn’t in a high enough area for the first month I had it, but have since moved it in strong indirect flow from my Nero 3 which is why it’s so awkwardly placed in the back of my rock work lol

The last few days it has also had its pores open, but today they appear closed.

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Remember, you cut the sponge so it will need to repair and adjust, for my 2 cents as the inner chambers that wasnt exposed now is. I only kept a tiny pink ball sponge that was a hitch hiker and it would change as I moved it till it adjusted. But I do not know enough about sponges other than good indirect flow and feeding.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all!
First of all, I know the typical spiel - sponges are nearly impossible to keep and feed. Despite this, at the end of December I decided to try one. I feed phyto daily and blast it with frozen food juices and kick up microfauna in the sand for it but not sure it’s enough.

I had it placed wrong initially I think because recently there was a little brown algae on it, and now parts of it where the algae was sitting is dying I think. I should’ve been more on top of it keeping the algae off it :/

The same area will turn white every couple of days , and I’ve been trying to clip/scrape off the dead areas to give it a fighting chance. I’ve also moved it to much higher flow. It turns a white/clear color and almost looks like filaments hanging off the sponge. Reminds me if a sponge had skeleton almost.

I’ve attached a pic of it when it got the brown algae on it, and one pic from today where you can see the dying parts that I’ve been cutting off. Is this what a doomed/dying sponge looks like? Should I continue clipping/scraping the white/clear dying areas or am I making it worse?

Thanks!

Looks like ball and needs high flow moderate to med light and phyto in the water

 

[george9]

Looks like ball and needs high flow moderate to med light and phyto in the water

Yes I feed phyto daily, and it is in high flow now. I thought these guys were not photosynthetic? Nonetheless it has been in low/medium light the entire time I’ve had it. Should I keep scraping off the white areas with a scalpel or leave it be? I’m not sure if sponges can be damaged by scraping with a scalpel, but just don’t want the rot areas to spread. I keep it underwater while I do it.

Remember, you cut the sponge so it will need to repair and adjust, for my 2 cents as the inner chambers that wasnt exposed now is. I only kept a tiny pink ball sponge that was a hitch hiker and it would change as I moved it till it adjusted. But I do not know enough about sponges other than good indirect flow and feeding.

How did yours change as you moved it? Just curious to have a little baseline to watch out for. Not much out there on how sponges are supposed to “behave” or look lol

I guess for reference, when I say cut or scrape with a scalpel, I’m not digging deep. I’d equate it more to a scraping the fuzz off a tennis ball type feeling since these white areas don’t go very deep at all.

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Yes I feed phyto daily, and it is in high flow now. I thought these guys were not photosynthetic? Nonetheless it has been in low/medium light the entire time I’ve had it. Should I keep scraping off the white areas with a scalpel or leave it be? I’m not sure if sponges can be damaged by scraping with a scalpel, but just don’t want the rot areas to spread. I keep it underwater while I do it.


How did yours change as you moved it? Just curious to have a little baseline to watch out for. Not much out there on how sponges are supposed to “behave” or look lol

I guess for reference, when I say cut or scrape with a scalpel, I’m not digging deep. I’d equate it more to a scraping the fuzz off a tennis ball type feeling since these white areas don’t go very deep at all.

Im not the one for advice and this thing was maybe half inch diameter round lol. It did a bit of die off and even moved a bit on its own. Very weird.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yes I feed phyto daily, and it is in high flow now. I thought these guys were not photosynthetic? Nonetheless it has been in low/medium light the entire time I’ve had it. Should I keep scraping off the white areas with a scalpel or leave it be? I’m not sure if sponges can be damaged by scraping with a scalpel, but just don’t want the rot areas to spread. I keep it underwater while I do it.


How did yours change as you moved it? Just curious to have a little baseline to watch out for. Not much out there on how sponges are supposed to “behave” or look lol

I guess for reference, when I say cut or scrape with a scalpel, I’m not digging deep. I’d equate it more to a scraping the fuzz off a tennis ball type feeling since these white areas don’t go very deep at all.

Before scraping, try gentle spurts with a turkey baster. These are very challenging members of sponge group

 

[george9]

Before scraping, try gentle spurts with a turkey baster. These are very challenging members of sponge group

Thank you! Sounds good, will try this in a few days. It’s been 2 days in a row of my scraping it and J want to give it a little time to adjust, even if I see white areas coming back

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I feed phyto daily and blast it with frozen food juices and kick up microfauna in the sand for it but not sure it’s enough.

What phyto are you feeding and how much? When you say you blast it with frozen food juices, do you mean you purposefully blow some straight at it, or do you blow it into the flow and let the flow carry it to the sponge?

Also, a little bit of white isn't necessarily cause for concern with this species (Dragmacidon lunaecharta) - if you do a Google images search for the scientific name, you'll see quite a few wild specimens with a whitish layer to them (it may just be detritus/substrate buildup, I'm not sure).

As Ben's Pico Reefing mentioned, you need to make sure it's in a spot where the flow will carry food to it - offering phyto, juice from frozen foods (some of which may be too large while some may be appropriately sized), and whatever stirs out of the sandbed/blows off the rocks is a good approach if the sponge is in an area where the flow will naturally carry those things to it.

For the flow and substrate:

If you do some reading on sponge keeping here on R2R, you'll probably find pretty quickly that most people recommend low lighting low flow for sponges (exceptions for photosynthetic sponges), but the truth is this also depends on the sponge species. The most common photosynthetic sponges in the hobby are the photosynthetic plating sponges (like you can find/buy on LiveAquaria's site), but there are quite a few other sponges that are photosynthetic too (such as Aplysina cauliformis, for example), and these would benefit from high lighting. Similarly, some species of sponge do best in very high flow areas, including high flow areas with laminar flow (a lot of people talk about random flow on the site, which would be called turbulent flow, as they're trying to get the water moving basically randomly throughout the tank - laminar flow is just a continuous flow that doesn't change, so the water keeps going the same direction nonstop and there's nothing random about it). If you're not sure if the sponge is photosynthetic or not, you can try starting it in one lighting (such as low lighting), see how it does and then compare it to a different lighting (moderate or high) and figure out its needs from that. Same with the flow. Light will probably be the most important part for photosynthetic species and the food/flow the most important for NPS species - some people have found stirring up their sand to be an effective food source for sponges, likely because it puts bacteria and DOM into the water column. It’s probably safest to start low light/flow and move up, rather than starting high and moving lower.

Should you decide to try and keep any of the sponges you're interested in, take note if you can of the sponge's surroundings and the flow it's in - if you can't do that, the link below may help you figure out sediment and flow preferences for any sponges you want to keep (the graphical abstract close to the top is a visual representation of the info presented). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X21004714

 

[george9]

What phyto are you feeding and how much? When you say you blast it with frozen food juices, do you mean you purposefully blow some straight at it, or do you blow it into the flow and let the flow carry it to the sponge?

Also, a little bit of white isn't necessarily cause for concern with this species (Dragmacidon lunaecharta) - if you do a Google images search for the scientific name, you'll see quite a few wild specimens with a whitish layer to them (it may just be detritus/substrate buildup, I'm not sure).

As Ben's Pico Reefing mentioned, you need to make sure it's in a spot where the flow will carry food to it - offering phyto, juice from frozen foods (some of which may be too large while some may be appropriately sized), and whatever stirs out of the sandbed/blows off the rocks is a good approach if the sponge is in an area where the flow will naturally carry those things to it.

For the flow and substrate:

Thank you for all of this information! I’m feeding a blend of phyto, nannochloropsis, tetraselnis, isochrysis and thalassiosira mixed together. It’s in my 40g tank and I usually dose about 20-30ml of phyto a day. When I “blast” it with frozen food juices, I’m not blasting it per se where i’m trying to blow it away lol. I kinda make a cloud of crap over the sponge with reduced flow and let it sit over the sponge. I don't do this nearly as often as the phyto, though. Probably twice a week most.

I have seen this species with white areas but none have looked like how mine looks. Most i’ve seen have a white layer stuck to the top to it or sediments stuck to it. My white/clear area is part of the sponge itself. It’s reminding me of when a scoly isn’t puffy and you can see its skeleton poking out through the flesh. It’s very hard to describe, but they’re like clear filaments that slowly “rise” from the sponge and I can scrape them off with a scalpel. I’m not sure if these clear filaments are actually rising from the sponge or if this area of the sponge is actually just decaying. It almost reminds me of how fabrics pill sometimes if you rub them enough. Or like the fuzz on a tennis ball. Doesn’t look fungusy or infected or gross at all but is clearly not right

If it continues to get worse I can take some better photos but today I am going to let it be since I man handled it this morning with the scalpel lol.


edit - added the last pic showing when the algae was on the surface of the sponge about 8 days ago. You can see the areas turning clear are basically the same areas where algae populations were maximized. Hopefully this progression stops but who knows

 

[dennis romano]

I have several sponges that are several years old. Try not to handle it. They have a "skeleton" that is quite fragile, usually described as crystalline. They also grow attachments to the substrate, moving them breaks the attachments.

I keep mine at the bottom of the tank, away from light. The current in the tank goes across the tank, hits a wall then flows over them. Every day, I squirt phyto and stir up the substrate to get the microfauna into the water column. The current takes the food to the sponges. I've never seen my reds with openings but my elephant ears open theirs all of the time. Mine get white areas but don't seem to bother them. Good luck.

 

[george9]

I have several sponges that are several years old. Try not to handle it. They have a "skeleton" that is quite fragile, usually described as crystalline. They also grow attachments to the substrate, moving them breaks the attachments.

I keep mine at the bottom of the tank, away from light. The current in the tank goes across the tank, hits a wall then flows over them. Every day, I squirt phyto and stir up the substrate to get the microfauna into the water column. The current takes the food to the sponges. I've never seen my reds with openings but my elephant ears open theirs all of the time. Mine get white areas but don't seem to bother them. Good luck.

Thanks for the info! Beautiful tank BTW. Do you squirt phyto directly towards the sponges or do you broadcast feed and let them filter it out?

I am not going to touch it for a while and hopefully the damage eventually stops since it seems to be collocated with where the algae grew.

Here’s how it looks today, from a slight side angle so you can see the extent of the whitish area better. It looks significantly worse from the side than more of a top down view. It has gotten bigger since yesterday, but is still not spreading anywhere that wasn’t covered in algae.

When you’ve seen one of your red sponges with white areas, how does the look of mine compare out of curiosity?

 

[dennis romano]

Your sponge looks to be in very good shape, much better than most of the others that I have seen on R2R. I shoot the food by the return and it spreads it throughout the tank. Try not to get algae or detritus onto the sponge. It stops the water from passing through that area, killing the area.

 

[george9]

Your sponge looks to be in very good shape, much better than most of the others that I have seen on R2R. I shoot the food by the return and it spreads it throughout the tank. Try not to get algae or detritus onto the sponge. It stops the water from passing through that area, killing the area.

Thanks, appreciate your help!! Definitely think I’m seeing localized areas dying due to algae, but Im hoping it stays local and doesn’t kill the whole specimen.

I will leave the sponge alone and update if I see improvement or significant decline.

 

[george9]

@dennis romano I am noticing a tiny bit of additional brown algae on the surface of healthy areas on the sponge today that I was able to spot and quickly remove. Is this indicative of not enough flow on the sponge, too much light (or all of the above?) Or is it normal to have to lightly brush algae off every now and then?

I am worried additional areas of tissue are going to begin turn white now.

The existing white areas where algae had previously grown haven’t spread at all, but they have gotten a bit deeper, as expected.

 

[dennis romano]

@dennis romano I am noticing a tiny bit of additional brown algae on the surface of healthy areas on the sponge today that I was able to spot and quickly remove. Is this indicative of not enough flow on the sponge, too much light (or all of the above?) Or is it normal to have to lightly brush algae off every now and then?

I am worried additional areas of tissue are going to begin turn white now.

The existing white areas where algae had previously grown haven’t spread at all, but they have gotten a bit deeper, as expected.

It still looks pretty good but to be on the safe side, I would move to a more shaded area. Upping the flow couldn't hurt, but do not blast it. Like I said, the current in my tank comes from the right, hits the wall on the left then flows towards the sponges. Stir the substrate but don't let detritus settle on it. Good luck.

 

[george9]

Sponge update! White areas haven’t spread at all, and I am pretty sure it has stopped getting deeper as well. I think the initial thinking that the brown algae areas would be the only areas to turn white was correct. Most of the sponge is still bright red and texture looks good. Seems to be holding steady for now, I have SpongeExcel on the way to get some additional silicates in the water and maybe that will boost it a bit and be what it needs to really recover. I have various color sponges growing in many areas of the tank at this point, so I think that is a sign I am at least creating an environment conducive for SOME sponge, hopefully this one as well.

I stopped brushing it or scalpeling any white areas off so it may look slightly worse than previous pictures where I physically removed some of the white areas.

Interestingly my fromia star is obsessed with the sponge. It seems to be near or on top of it more often than not. Not sure if that is a sign the whole thing is dying but we’ll see.

Still optimistic but also still kicking myself because If I didn’t let algae grow on this thing in the first place I don’t think I’d be having as much trouble with it. Live and learn

 

[dennis romano]

Sponge update! White areas haven’t spread at all, and I am pretty sure it has stopped getting deeper as well. I think the initial thinking that the brown algae areas would be the only areas to turn white was correct. Most of the sponge is still bright red and texture looks good. Seems to be holding steady for now, I have SpongeExcel on the way to get some additional silicates in the water and maybe that will boost it a bit and be what it needs to really recover. I have various color sponges growing in many areas of the tank at this point, so I think that is a sign I am at least creating an environment conducive for SOME sponge, hopefully this one as well.

I stopped brushing it or scalpeling any white areas off so it may look slightly worse than previous pictures where I physically removed some of the white areas.

Interestingly my fromia star is obsessed with the sponge. It seems to be near or on top of it more often than not. Not sure if that is a sign the whole thing is dying but we’ll see.

Still optimistic but also still kicking myself because If I didn’t let algae grow on this thing in the first place I don’t think I’d be having as much trouble with it. Live and learn

YAY!!!!