Whats in Sponge power

[vetteguy53081]

There is literally no info on the product contents and for a few years, its been suspected that acetic acid (vinegar) is added to camoflauge the smell of ingredients (which are simple ingredients) but no confirmation to this

 

[taricha]

I wonder if the expectation is that the Fe would bind and aggregate otherwise soluble things, like PO4 (and perhaps organics too). Then the aggregates might be filtered by the sponges etc and deliver nutrition?

@Dan_P found that Iron dosed to a tank was depleted pretty fast, and that it accumulated in skimmate. So perhaps it hooks up with aquarium organics too.

 

[Dan_P]

I wonder if the expectation is that the Fe would bind and aggregate otherwise soluble things, like PO4 (and perhaps organics too). Then the aggregates might be filtered by the sponges etc and deliver nutrition?

@Dan_P found that Iron dosed to a tank was depleted pretty fast, and that it accumulated in skimmate. So perhaps it hooks up with aquarium organics too.

Chelation of trace elements might be the way these elements could be removed by GAC too.

Turning this around, if you could measure dosed trace elements or even just one, could you then determine whether the water has chelators by measuring the trace element presence in skimmate or it loss by GAC treatment? IO might be a control test if it does not contain the chelator EDTA. All assuming the chelator does not interfere with the test.

 

[rtparty]

Yes, that’s certainly the appropriate way to do it.

What would be the proper ratio to do this?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Chelation of trace elements might be the way these elements could be removed by GAC too.

Turning this around, if you could measure dosed trace elements or even just one, could you then determine whether the water has chelators by measuring the trace element presence in skimmate or it loss by GAC treatment? IO might be a control test if it does not contain the chelator EDTA. All assuming the chelator does not interfere with the test.

Copper in normal seawater is known to be almost completely bound by organic matter, and I expect the same applies to many transition metals, both in the ocean and in aquaria.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What would be the proper ratio to do this?

I think that a reasonable method is to measure some tank water, and then add this at a couple of different doses, say, 1x normal dose and 10x normal dose, and see how the levels of anything rose.

 

[Spare time]

This might help if you haven't seen it https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/zeovit-sponge-power-ingredients.847343/

 

[Koty]

One question is how fast these trace elements are eliminated from the water column or become unavailable for consumption by inverts. Then, it seems, at least in my case, that one of them is a limiting factor for sponges (in my DT, W/O WCs) and probably for other corals as well. I would guess that it is Mn because I dose Iron from 3 sources (two-part, Seachem Iron, and coral food Seachem Reef Plus). In the case of the KZ method, they essentially keep their corals starving for the purposes of coral color and water quality. Thus promoting sponges is a kind of safety net to bottoming out parameters.

 

[taricha]

Maybe this (containing Fe and Mn) ought to be double-checked.

I used my hanna low range Fe checker and found no substantial (>20ppb) Fe at 1x, 3x,10x, 20x, or 200x the recommended dose of sponge power added to tank water. But if I add Iron supplements from Red Sea or Brightwell to tank water, the Fe checker gives the expected response (within 10%).


Caveats. My spongePower is from 2020. No noticeable precipitation, still smelled like acetic acid. Maybe they changed ingredients. Maybe the Fe was not stable over that time period.

 

[Koty]

....or maybe the acetic acid is screwing with the test

 

[HomebroodExotics]

I was really expecting it to be a silica based product.

 

[taricha]

....or maybe the acetic acid is screwing with the test

right. It was a quick look, I didn't eliminate the possibility of interference.
I can also imagine that it could be possible to deliver Fe in some form that the hanna chemistry doesn't react with, though no idea what that form would be.
hanna chemistry reacts just fine with Fe chelated with EDTA, or acid-dissolved out of aragonite sand.

I wonder what the dilution for the ICP was?
I mean if the ICP was done on, say a 0.1% dilution of Sponge Power in saltwater (1mL / Liter) , then that would be 2,000x the recommended dose, and finding 40ppb Fe and 110ppb Mn would mean a recommended dose isn't really delivering any noticeable amount of either one, and they may not be intentional ingredients.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

right. It was a quick look, I didn't eliminate the possibility of interference.
I can also imagine that it could be possible to deliver Fe in some form that the hanna chemistry doesn't react with, though no idea what that form would be.
hanna chemistry reacts just fine with Fe chelated with EDTA, or acid-dissolved out of aragonite sand.

I wonder what the dilution for the ICP was?
I mean if the ICP was done on, say a 0.1% dilution of Sponge Power in saltwater (1mL / Liter) , then that would be 2,000x the recommended dose, and finding 40ppb Fe and 110ppb Mn would mean a recommended dose isn't really delivering any noticeable amount of either one, and they may not be intentional ingredients.

Maybe it’s a placebo

 

[Koty]

The guy I got it from may have sent me the wrong test results but I doubt it.
This "placebo" works as my tank is now loaded with sponges. I remember vaguely reading somewhere that Manganese was associated with Goniopora (J. Sprung?) and Xenia survival. I just introduced a small chunk of Xenia. Last time it did not survive. I have a red Goni that was looking bad and is now extending a bit (maybe due to unrelated reasons)

 

[Spare time]

Did you all check out the link I inserted? Someone sent it off to be tested previously.

 

[taricha]

Did you all check out the link I inserted? Someone sent it off to be tested previously.

I did. What was in that thread other than the same info as in this thread discussed by the same people?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Did you all check out the link I inserted? Someone sent it off to be tested previously.

The OP on this thread is the person who mentioned the testing done in the thread you linked.

 

[Spare time]

I did. What was in that thread other than the same info as in this thread discussed by the same people?

My bad I forgot that was the same person as the author of this thread haha

 

[taricha]

I was really expecting it to be a silica based product.

I did too, I was quite surprised that I measured no Si.
But 1 drop per 100 Liters would be a very tiny amount of Si, even if it were concentrated waterglass (and it's not - smells strongly like acetic acid.)

....or maybe the acetic acid is screwing with the test

It was a quick look, I didn't eliminate the possibility of interference.

Just a follow-up, spongepower (my bottle from 2020) doesn't add detectable Fe or interfere with the Fe test, even at 100X recommended dose.

I used the hanna low range Fe checker to measure tank water, and added a dose of Red sea Trace C "Iron+" that should result in 100 ppb Fe. This data is in Blue below and shows the expected result. Undetectable in tank water, and near ~100ppb after addition of the red sea Fe product.
Then I did the same thing but with 1 drop / Liter of SpongePower (100x dose), shown in Red.
It neither added Fe nor interfered with the detected Fe from the Red Sea Iron+ product.

my bottle is from 2020 like I said. Since they list no ingredients, I suppose that makes it easy to change them any time you want

The guy I got it from may have sent me the wrong test results but I doubt it.
This "placebo" works as my tank is now loaded with sponges.

Again - to be clear, I'm not saying my quick look is definitive that the ICP results are wrong. Just that it should be double-checked first, to see if there is in fact significant Fe and Mn in a dose. Before we take those results as fact and spend much time thinking about how Fe and Mn dosing helps sponges.

(I used it too, and felt like it maybe helped sponge growth. I stopped when I realized I had no idea what was in it, and the things actually needed for sponge growth I can provide through known ingredients. )

 

[Mark Novack]

I have a bottle of this. I recently did some large water changes so its very clean and I started drops of this two days ago. Its the only thing I'm using currently (plus calcium reactor) so if it makes a difference I should see it. Polyps were pretty flamboyant yesterday. Clams look happy.