Intresting Read About Sponges
- Thread starter sharrison
- Start date
Extra sponges, perhaps even in a cryptic area might work well along side organic carbon dosing.
I do have a very large area like that and I dose silicate to encourage sponges, so perhaps that is why I can get away with organic carbon doses seeming well above what others use.
I do have a very large area like that and I dose silicate to encourage sponges, so perhaps that is why I can get away with organic carbon doses seeming well above what others use.
NaClH2Opgh
New member
I am dosing vodka and want to setup a cryptic fuge/zone with sponges. Will the amount of DOC that the sponges consume be that significant that I need to increase the amount of vodka I dose?
I don't think anyone even knows if they can take up ethanol itself.
ScooterTDI
New member
and have never been noted to include significant number of choanocytes in their diets.
Of course, until this guys analysis showed substantial amounts being released, would anyone have even thought to look for them?
Of course, until this guys analysis showed substantial amounts being released, would anyone have even thought to look for them?
I have one( 2ft by 4 ft) with some lr including some carribean which has very pretty yellow and red/orange sponge . I'm always surprised by the brightness of it's color when I open the lid. Too bad it lives in the dark out of sight. I also have some patches of sponge here and there in my reef tanks.Is dosing silicate good for calacareous spongers too?
How much do you recommend as a dose?
How much do you recommend as a dose?
Although due to laziness I dose silicate less frequently than mentioned in the article, I discuss amounts and times, etc here:
Silica in a Reef Tank
http://advancedaquarist.com/issues/jan2003/feature.htm
Although due to laziness I dose silicate less frequently than mentioned in the article, I discuss amounts and times, etc here:
Silica in a Reef Tank
http://advancedaquarist.com/issues/jan2003/feature.htm
Wilberheim
New member
Thats pretty cool. I hope to get a nice sponge for my tank once I get it up and running agian.
:thumbsup:
Happy Reefing.
Happy Reefing.
Yogre
Cheesehead Reefer
I'm looking forward to reading this article (time for bedtime stories now) but this may be the key to unlock why my sponges keep dying. I have some in direct light, and some are nearly cryptic. They are all Caribbean, which if I read the article correctly is not a high-nutrient environment, much like my tank. But none seem to be doing well.
Thanks, Randy!
elegance coral
They call me EC
I thought that was one of the cool things about this article. If the sponge is constantly shedding cellular tissue, shouldn't we be able to remove it through skimming and/or mechanical filtration? Wouldn't this be similar to your statement? "periodically harvest and remove biomass from them."
greenbean36191
Premium Member
Yes, but that should not be automatically interpreted as meaning DOC removal also includes removal of DON and DOP, which is a leap that I think some posters are making. A large part of the DOC pool is carbohydrates and fatty acids, removal of which doesn't affect the DON or DOP pools. If for example, the sponges could take up ethanol directly (which I think is a big if), doing so would have no direct effect on DIN or DOP.
You don't have to specifically look for them to find them. If you know what a choanocyte looks like (which every marine biologist does) and you're taking inventory of food that's similar in size to choanocytes (since you're looking at the diet of suspension feeders), if there are choanocytes there, you should find them.
Most analyses do include a catch-all bin though, for "cellular debris" which could be hiding discarded choanocytes. However, they're pretty distinctive cells, so I think it's unlikely that there would be a significant number of them consumed, but none that are identifiable.
Well the statement I was replying to was that skimmers could be replaced by sponges. It's hard to skim out the discarded cells if you've removed your skimmer. Even then, I don't know how efficiently skimmers would remove choanocytes. Randy would probably have a much better answer for that. It's also important to note that the sponge in this study had the highest rates of DOC uptake of any sponge ever measured, which was why they were prompted to look at what it was doing with all of that C. It's not clear how widespread this type of cell turnover is yet, so it's not clear whether most sponges would provide a meaningful way to export nutrients even if discarded choanocytes are easily removed.
You don't have to specifically look for them to find them. If you know what a choanocyte looks like (which every marine biologist does) and you're taking inventory of food that's similar in size to choanocytes (since you're looking at the diet of suspension feeders), if there are choanocytes there, you should find them.
OK.
But I'll make a good bet that if this is a natural process of significant importance to a natural reef, that there are plenty of organsims that will be consumers of them. And possibly they are among our reef tank inhabitants. I'm not nearly so SPS coral centric as a lot of folks here.
Yes, but that should not be automatically interpreted as meaning DOC removal also includes removal of DON and DOP, which is a leap that I think some posters are making. A large part of the DOC pool is carbohydrates and fatty acids, removal of which doesn't affect the DON or DOP pools. If for example, the sponges could take up ethanol directly (which I think is a big if), doing so would have no direct effect on DIN or DOP.
Presumably the shed cells contains substantial N and P, so the sponges must be somehow taking up N and P from the water. IF you are exporting them by skimming or other method, then you presumably have an export method, similar to the bacterial methods.
OK.
But I'll make a good bet that if this is a natural process of significant importance to a natural reef, that there are plenty of organsims that will be consumers of them. And possibly they are among our reef tank inhabitants. I'm not nearly so SPS coral centric as a lot of folks here.
Yes, but that should not be automatically interpreted as meaning DOC removal also includes removal of DON and DOP, which is a leap that I think some posters are making. A large part of the DOC pool is carbohydrates and fatty acids, removal of which doesn't affect the DON or DOP pools. If for example, the sponges could take up ethanol directly (which I think is a big if), doing so would have no direct effect on DIN or DOP.
Presumably the shed cells contains substantial N and P, so the sponges must be somehow taking up N and P from the water. IF you are exporting them by skimming or other method, then you presumably have an export method, similar to the bacterial methods.
greenbean36191
Premium Member
Oh, there are certainly lots of animals that will eat these things, probably including many of the animals in our tanks. I think the more important question though is whether those animals are hard-pressed for food to begin with though. The shed cells are POM, aka detritus. While turning DOC into detritus has important implications for C cycling on the reefs in nature, I don't think most hobbyists would have found this paper nearly as interesting if the news article had worded it this way. We already have plenty of animals in our tanks that are good at making detritus.
Yes, but it's a question of how the form initially taken up by the sponge compares to the form excreted in terms of exportability and suitability as food. The news that they're taking up DOC was interesting because it's a form that most animals don't use as food. Their source of N is a different story.
We know from previous studies that most sponges are net producers of dissolved N, which means that they must be getting a substantial part of their N budget from POM and bacterioplankton rather than taking it up from the DIN and DON pools. In the case of nitrogen at least, you're talking about turning bacterial nitrogen, which should be easily removed through skimming and is known to be good food for most filter feeders, into POM (for the fraction of N going into the shed cells), which may or may not be easy to skim out and isn't known to be a major food source for most of what we keep aside from deposit feeders.
OK, thanks.
Fishbulb2
New member
Hi Randy,
Do you have a link (I'll bet you do!), to how you dose and test for silicates?
Thanks,
FB
