White substance growing on frag rack

[seerad]

Hello! I noticed this white stringy stuff growing in my frag rack a couple weeks ago. I saw it was full of copepods/amphipods moving in it so thought maybe it was good, but it’s spreading and has now grown onto a Duncan that was recovering and now is poking out all over its base and it’s receded aggressively.

I can’t figure out what it is nor how to deal with it. I don’t want to just scrub it off the frag rack and risk it breaking off and spreading if that’s a possibility. I’ve searched a lot and not seen a good match. As always, any help would be appreciated!

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Seems to be an invasive sponge - if it’s growing on the coral itself (not the base, but up on the actual coral), or if the coral was recovering and you have no other explanation for why it has started deteriorating again, then it would probably be a particularly bad sponge.

Depending on the sponge and its location on the coral, you may be able to just scrape it off and suction it out, or
the quotes below may help with removal.

The best way I've heard to control sponge growth at this point is to use a steel straw to scrape and siphon out the sponge you want to remove. Sometimes you can create bad conditions for them and kill them off that way, but that's typically much harder and not always effective.

Some other sponge removal methods:

Generally speaking, the easiest way to remove sponges is to scrape them off (the best recommendation I've seen for this is to scrape it off and suction it out).

Other suggestions include exposing the sponge to air (obviously not a guaranteed solution, and definitely not viable for this situation); hydrogen peroxide dipping the sponge (again, not viable here); injecting the sponge with hydrogen peroxide, vinegar, boiling water, or air; microbubbles in the display; and a few more. Predation is not usually a good solution for this issue, and I explain why below: