How to kill sponge

[mfollen]

Hey reefers,

I have a nuisance orange sponge that is not dying from injection of 3% hydrogen peroxide.

how do you kill off unwanted nuisance sponge? No angelfish in the tank eat it.

thanks!

 

[ZoWhat]

Why is the orange sponge pictured a "nuisance"?

If it's not bothering corals, I personally would encourage it in my tank.

To kill it you can get some Pickling Lime or Kalk powder....make a paste thin enough to squirt thru a syringe and go to town laying down the paste over the sponge areas with all flow OFF within the tank


.

 

[mfollen]

Thanks. It’s surrounding and suffocating coral. Closing in on the tips of the zoas in the pic. Hard to tell tho.

 

[ZoWhat]

Thanks. It’s surrounding and suffocating coral. Closing in on the tips of the zoas in the pic. Hard to tell tho.

Kalk paste solution will do it. You can even use the paste to setup boundary lines keeping the sponge at bay away from coral but keeping the look.in LR exposed areas

 

[Flame2hawk]

Let my goldflake and emperor angels take care of it for you!....only problem they may take care of other coal too???...perhaps you should go with skimjim’s suggestion! Good luck!

 

[spicymikey]

Hey reefers,

I have a nuisance orange sponge that is not dying from injection of 3% hydrogen peroxide.

how do you kill off unwanted nuisance sponge? No angelfish in the tank eat it.

thanks!

This is an old thread I realize, but were you successful in killing that orangish sponge? It appears I have the same thing. Its silky thin. You can see through it and it brushes off easily enough, but unless you get it all from every crack and crevasse it just continues growing . It spreads about an inch per week and killing anything in its path.

So far it has smothered several Zoanthid colonies and 2 Acan colonies. I was hesitant to touch it for fear of spreading it through out the tank, but at this point I have no choice. This is a 400gal reef and I can't start breaking down the tank.

I saw @zoa what suggested kalkwasser paste. I tried that and within a week it started growing OVER the kalk from sponge sections I missed . This seems like some sort of alien life form! I'm getting concerned and would appreciate any suggestions from anyone

 

[ZoWhat]

This is an old thread I realize, but were you successful in killing that orangish sponge? It appears I have the same thing. Its silky thin. You can see through it and it brushes off easily enough, but unless you get it all from every crack and crevasse it just continues growing . It spreads about an inch per week and killing anything in its path.

So far it has smothered several Zoanthid colonies and 2 Acan colonies. I was hesitant to touch it for fear of spreading it through out the tank, but at this point I have no choice. This is a 400gal reef and I can't start breaking down the tank.

I saw @zoa what suggested kalkwasser paste. I tried that and within a week it started growing OVER the kalk from sponge sections I missed . This seems like some sort of alien life form! I'm getting concerned and would appreciate any suggestions from anyone

I would say the best way to kill off sponges is let a Noob manage your tank for 4 weeks

 

[naterealbig]

This is an old thread I realize, but were you successful in killing that orangish sponge? It appears I have the same thing. Its silky thin. You can see through it and it brushes off easily enough, but unless you get it all from every crack and crevasse it just continues growing . It spreads about an inch per week and killing anything in its path.

So far it has smothered several Zoanthid colonies and 2 Acan colonies. I was hesitant to touch it for fear of spreading it through out the tank, but at this point I have no choice. This is a 400gal reef and I can't start breaking down the tank.

I saw @zoa what suggested kalkwasser paste. I tried that and within a week it started growing OVER the kalk from sponge sections I missed . This seems like some sort of alien life form! I'm getting concerned and would appreciate any suggestions from anyone

@spicymikey - did you ever get rid of this? I have it in a QT tank now and it literally growing over live coral, and smothering it. Polyps close and never reopen.

I tried running tap water over it, exposing it to air, and H202 poured directly on it. Nothing has helped.

 

[spicymikey]

@spicymikey - did you ever get rid of this? I have it in a QT tank now and it literally growing over live coral, and smothering it. Polyps close and never reopen.

I tried running tap water over it, exposing it to air, and H202 poured directly on it. Nothing has helped.

Yes in my case it eventually just faded away on its own, like a lot of sponge often do. In the meantime I kept it in check by manually cleaning it off some of the coral it was growing onto. Kalk paste r also worked well to knock it back. All in all it ran is course in about six months. Assuming you have the same weird sponge then there is hope that it will come to an end. Good luck

 

[naterealbig]

Yes in my case it eventually just faded away on its own, like a lot of sponge often do. In the meantime I kept it in check by manually cleaning it off some of the coral it was growing onto. Kalk paste r also worked well to knock it back. All in all it ran is course in about six months. Assuming you have the same weird sponge then there is hope that it will come to an end. Good luck

Thanks for the reply. I believe this is the same sponge - pic below (I started a thread on it actually). It looks much more yellow in the picture than it does with the naked eye - it's almost a dull brownish-orangish color. Very thin, and basically disintegrates when you touch it. It looks like it turns to dust in the water when you scrub it off similar to what you describe - so there is no "peeling" it as many suggest.

To be clear to others who replied to this thread: I am a huge fan of sponges, to the point I seek them out when I am at LFS, and I am fairly well-versed in benthic systems. I have many species in my quarantines, but have never had one that grows so quickly, and right over living coral tissue. I'm not certain it is consuming the corals, but at a minimum it is irritating it to the point the polyps have stayed retracted for weeks.

 

[spicymikey]

Yes I'm sure it is not consuming the coral. Just smothering it. It does look a lot like what I had. I'm sure there's countless varieties and subspecies of these things. Of course as you know sponge or not photosynthetic and require nutrition from the water as a filter feed. So for me this happened very early on when I had less control over my nutrients. Now with nitrates and phosphates extremely low most sponge that hitchhiked into my tank is gone now. Even some of the stuff I didn't mind having.