Sponges killed off my zoa colony

[kristinarenee]

I knew there were a couple of tiny sponges on this rock when I purchased this colony. 7 months down the road the zoas slowly started dying off. I fragged a couple pieces and they are fine. I started to notice sponges growing on top. I picked up the rock for the first time in 6 months and this is what is going on. At this point I don't know if I should scrub all the sponges off and let my colony regrow or keep the sponges. I really like the blue sponges. This whole rock used to be covered in polyps. I have been plucking the stringy spagehtti looking sponges off. They were growing over the polyps.

 

[maevepotter]

Don't scrub anything to do with zoa's. You could kill yourself. Palytoxin.

 

[kristinarenee]

Don't scrub anything to do with zoa's. You could kill yourself. Palytoxin.

Good call. I manage to always forget about that. I even forgot halfway through fragging it.

 

[maevepotter]

Yikes. Maybe don't have them anymore then!

 

[Lovemyreef2015]

I personally wouldn't get rid of anything. While palytoxin is real I feel its exaggerated. Sponges can over grow and suffocate zoas but a soft toothbrush in a separate bucket of tank water will do wonders. We used to have to "clean" colonies often and would do this during water changes to make it easy. Been growing zoas and palys for many years and never had one issue. Never boil or heat the rock. Gloves and eye protection can be a good idea. The idea is to not scrub to hard and damage the polyps.