Pineapple Sponge Die Off

infinite0180 · Jul 11, 2019

Hello,

So my tanks almost 6 months old now. A few months back i had an explosion of pineapple sponge all throughout my tank. Well recently i stepped up water changes and now i think im having a massive die off of these sponges. They are pouring out of the rocks and my sump. Ive been running a ton of floss to try and keep up and i think its slowing down. Problem is they are getting all over my coral and ticking them off. I keep blowing them off with the baster but that might be ticking the coral off even more. My understanding is this is pretty normal in newer tanks when silicates start to decrease. Question is, can they hurt my sps? Should i just leave them be? Kind of at a loss of what to do here!

Thanks!

Big G · Jul 12, 2019

You are doing the right things. New tank challenges

xjiang7 · Jul 12, 2019

Same thing happened to me, at some point sponges of varieties turned up then died off. Kind of pity as one of them is purple. My tank is 8 month old

ReeferReefer · Jul 12, 2019

All part of a new tank. Many different types of organisms competing for the same space and not all of them will win.

Hermie · Jul 12, 2019

funny enough, I added a bag of silica sand to my sump to increase the sponges in my tank

I think overall it was a good thing except the sponges I believe are interfering with the biological filtration media I have by growing over it.

That loss of biological filtration is then leading to an imbalance of the nitrogen cycle/nutrient uptake and allowing cyano and turf algae to succeed. It's like a double edged sword.