[Batfish]

I've had this tree sponge for about five weeks and now it seems to be growing a sort of white fuzz on it. Also its texture has changed. It used to look smooth and now it looks very rough. Is this a bad thing?

[clown shrimp]

well yes it is bad. but it can be fixed! you have a ten gallon correct? if so pretty small tank for sponge, but it is doable. first do you spot feed it? if so what do you feed it. how many, and what kind of fish are in the tank. what kind of lighting do you have? and are you running a protein skimmer?

[pogodzib]

It sounds as if your sponge is dying from either lack of food or being exposed to air. Here is a good article to read about sponges, if you haven't already read it. Identification and Husbandry of Aquarium Sponges by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com

[Batfish]

The sponge is my 29gal. I haven't been feeding it directly but I have been adding DT's phytoplancton to the tank. Right now all I have in it is two neon gobies. There also used to be a batfish but it died of ick. The tank is only about two months old so I havn't added many fish. I'm using cf lighting. I've got 130 watts on the tank. I am using a protein skimmer.
Do you think spot feeding it phytoplancton might help?

[clown shrimp]

dt's is good stuff and yes spot feed it. also keep it in low light and quite high flow. as u may n\know tree sponges do not do photosynthesis. they are heavy filter feeders that do well in a very "dirty" or high nutrients tank. Ps what kind of skimmer is it?

[clown shrimp]

and what size skimmer is it

[Batfish]

It's a small protein skimmer called a rio nano skimmer. The skimmer says that it's made for tanks up to 20 gallons but it seems to get the job done. I have the sponge in high light because I don't really have any low light areas. Do you think that could hurt it?
Dose the protein skimmer have a big affect on the sponge?

[clown shrimp]

well, when i set up tanks i like to plan way in advanced, " i set up systems specially designed for a certain types of animals." one of the tanks i have is a sponge tank it is a 24 gall. aquapod. i have no skimmer and replaced the CF lighting with normal fluorescent lights, "so i could have the low lighting with out the use of caves" i keep about 20orange tree sponges, 15red tree sponges and numerous blue ball sponges about 8of them one being about 8" across. the tank has been running since i was 14 "im almost 16 btw" the trick to keeping sponges alive and thriving is a dirty tank.

for you i would lose the skimmer and have a total of 4 sponges "minimum" to act as a skimmer, you should try to keep the sponges in low light so mabey on the bottom if possible. never expose the sponge to air and spot feed with dt's live marine phytoplankton and you should be able to keep a thriving sponge tank "reef" setup

[Batfish]

I've never heard of that before. So what your saying is that if you have enough sponges they will work just as well as a skimmer in keeping the water quality up.?

[pogodzib]

All corals filter waste one way or another out of the water. Some more than others. I am a big fan of having a good skimmer on reef tanks so I wouldn't recommend that you remove your skimmer, but there are some corals that do better without a skimmer because they like dirtier water. Unless you only keep these types of corals in your tank though, everything else will start to suffer if your water gets dirtier.

[clown shrimp]

pogodzib is right about the skimmer, but batfish has a small 29 gallon tank and he can do water changes if he needs to.

batfish, yes, if you have about 4-6 sponges it will work IMO better than your little rio skimmer

[Batfish]

Thanks for the help clown shrimp and pogodzip. I only have one sponge right now so I'm going to keep the skimmer. At least for right now. I'm also going to do some research on which corals like "dirtier" water. I have started spot feeding my sponge and it already looks better!
Thanks again

[clown shrimp]

o hey 1 more thing if you keep sponges than you can NOT keep any acropora or sps they need almost the exact opposite water chemistry needs

[clown shrimp]

sponges go well with leathers, softies and gonipora. good luck also
Sean D