Sponge melting

Fishinwall · Jun 22, 2017

Hi folks....my purple sponge after months of being in my tank is starting to melt.

What could be causing this and is there anything I can do to stop it?

Thanks

Best Fish-Jake · Jun 22, 2017

Some pics would help.. Most common reason for this to occur is air getting trapped in a pore of the sponge, then slowly killing the tissue surrounding the bubble. I'm not aware of any ways to stop the withering except for removing the air.

Sponges are big filter feeders, so daily dosing of phytoplankton is highly reccomended

Fishinwall · Jun 23, 2017

Best Fish-Jake said:
Some pics would help.. Most common reason for this to occur is air getting trapped in a pore of the sponge, then slowly killing the tissue surrounding the bubble. I'm not aware of any ways to stop the withering except for removing the air.

Sponges are big filter feeders, so daily dosing of phytoplankton is highly reccomended

Would air entrapment show up four months down the road?

AcroNem · Jun 23, 2017

Most sponges actually feed on things like bacteria, some picoplankton and dissolved organics. Some feed on things like small diatoms and occasionally other things, so particulate foods should still be fed, but as small as you can make it. The assumption that phytoplankton (usually a Nannochloropsis sp.) is pretty much the diet for all filter feeders is why a lot of them end up starving. It's possible that your sponge had air trapped in it, but it's also likely that it starved. Either way, my condolences, it's always hard losing something.

Best Fish-Jake · Jun 23, 2017

Fishinwall said:
Would air entrapment show up four months down the road?

I personally havnt seen it take that long.. have you ever had a problem with micro bubbles in the tank?

saltyfilmfolks · Jun 23, 2017

I have the purple plating sponges. Melted to near noting in my 55 and now grows like gangbusters every where. I put some in my 30g. melted.
same foods.
Ive pulled all of them out and into the air(i have that many) to no ill effect.

Fishinwall · Jun 24, 2017

Here it is.

Fishinwall · Jun 24, 2017

Best Fish-Jake said:
I personally havnt seen it take that long.. have you ever had a problem with micro bubbles in the tank?

I intentionally add micro bubbles every night

Grey Guy · Jun 24, 2017

I have always heard that dieing sponges would poison my tank, and that they are hard to keep alive. So, I've stayed away from them. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

saltyfilmfolks · Jun 24, 2017

Grey Guy said:
I have always heard that dieing sponges would poison my tank, and that they are hard to keep alive. So, I've stayed away from them. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

There are two basic types of sponges. One that has toxins and ones that don't.
In general all the available ones sold are the safe type.

As far as difficulty it thesame as many corals. Some just don't like what we have in the tank. If you check my post above, I couldn't keep them. And then for some reason I could. Most likeley is was bacterial content in the water, the tank matured.