Sponge or turnicate?

[Jfinn]

Wife discovered an interesting new tank inhabitant - about 1” long on the base of a colony of zoas. Any ideas?

 

[flagg37]

Sponge would be my guess.

 

[Katrina71]

+1

 

[SuncrestReef]

Sponge.

 

[Jfinn]

Thanks, I trust that’s correct...good sign of the tank maturing - that rock had been in my 20 and we never noticed until moving to the RSR350.

 

[ahiggins]

yep, sponge. be wary though. Ive had sponges form mats between my zoas and dissolve the mats between polyps. that guy alone isnt bad but just keep an eye on it.

 

[Jfinn]

yep, sponge. be wary though. Ive had sponges form mats between my zoas and dissolve the mats between polyps. that guy alone isnt bad but just keep an eye on it.

Interesting. My LFS guy told me they were beneficial and that I should seek live rock that HAD sponges. I get more misinformation there than anywhere it seems!

 

[ahiggins]

I totally agree with the misinformation lol I’ve had my share of lfs tell me conflicting info back to back in the same visit from the same guy!
Don’t get me wrong, sponges are great! I will let them grow anywhere the light isn’t touching-straight up lion king. Sump, back rocks, under rocks-all fair game. On my frags/corals-no way. I’ve had too many sponges that mat up that way smother some prized zoas. That’s just my 2cents though. If you want to let them go, just keep an eye on em. They will only be an issue if they start to overtake the zoa tissue mat.
I even have a pineapple sponge growing on a snail and he’s totally fine with it lol

 

[ahiggins]

See: straight up mobile pineapple