Need Help! Purple Plating Sponge Dying!

FLIPxSIDE

FLIPxSIDE

Acrylic Wizard
In need of some advice. I scored this plating sponge from a fellow reefer some time ago that was attached the live rock I got from him. I had a huge outbreak of red slime algae that I couldn't manage to stop naturally. I used the Ultralife Red Slime Remover exactly as instructed which did kill all the red slime extremely well and fast! Only down side is that I think it nuked my plating sponge. On top of that my light died. So I went from a quad lamp (3xActinic, 1x10k) to a dual lamp (1xActinic,1x10k) and now to a 6 lamp with less than 2 week old bulbs (3 actinic,1xCoralWave,1xReefWave,1x12KSunWave). Now everything else in the tank is doing amazing. Thriving, growing, loving life. I've done water changes weekly and still my sponge is withering away. Only one section looks as if it's recovering on a seperate rock. I have moved the bigger chunk to a shaded area with decent flow as someone else on another forum had the same issues. Does anyone have any experience with this? Any advice or help would be extremely helpful. This is by far my favorite thing in my tank.




This is before it took the turn for the worse.

received_10209370485886783_zpsyfqeessg.jpeg
 
Did u do a large water change to help remove the red slime. Because if it was exposed to air during that time its possible that's would he the culprit!

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evo.howard2010 said:
Did u do a large water change to help remove the red slime. Because if it was exposed to air during that time its possible that's would he the culprit!

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It has always been located very low in the tank, and the water changes I do wont ever of get that low. The tank is a 40 gallon with 30 gallon sump. As for the air concern, it had only seen air one time when transferring from one tank to the other, but that was more than 5 months ago. I'm almost positive its Collospongia auris, which has a very high tolerance for air exposure so they say.
 
evo.howard2010 said:
How new is the tank

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All of the rock, sand, fish, corals all ran in a 20 gallon for almost 6 or 7 months. In April it all got swapped to the 40 gallon. So its ran its cycle and all those fun stages and has been doing exceptionally well. Fish are healthy and happy, all my corals are doing insanely well with amazing growth, just the sponge is not doing so hot.
 
Well they are filter feeders it could be that there's not enough micro funa in the tank for support it cause it looks pretty large!

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evo.howard2010 said:
Well they are filter feeders it could be that there's not enough micro funa in the tank for support it cause it looks pretty large!

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The photo is kind of deceiving in terms of size, its actually a little larger than a CD in terms of how its spread out. I have several pieces attached to several rocks in the tank, and all of them seem to be doing the same thing. That big shot was just the largest chunk of it in the tank. I only have one piece that is starting to look as if its going to pull through and is starting to get its original deep purple color.



 
evo.howard2010 said:
Yeah most of the small one will probably die if is falling apart.

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Think I'm just going to move the big chunk back up front and aim it towards the shaded area as low as I can get it and see what happens. At least this way it will still get some light and a lot more flow and I can see if its getting worse or better. In the back where it is now I can barely see it.
 
I would not put it in the shade even though they are not photosynthetic they do like moderate lighting and strong flow and I would feed him a liquid food like marine snow by brightwell or their ultra planktos

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evo.howard2010 said:
I would not put it in the shade even though they are not photosynthetic they do like moderate lighting and strong flow and I would feed him a liquid food like marine snow by brightwell or their ultra planktos

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I just was reading about Marine Snow and the Kent Phytoplex. Not sure which one to try, the Marine snow says it has both Zoo and Phyto in it from Two Little Fishies. Is Marine Snow what you would choose over all of it?
 
Well the marine snow covers a wider range of animals but the brightwell ultra planktos in spacificaly for clams and sponges so in ur case I would go with ultra planktos

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The purple plating sponge is photosynthetic so give it light and lots of it. I have only seen it go white from high nitrates or not enough light.
 
I ordered both of them, both versions of it. Can't hurt to try . Both were cheaper than one bottle of Marine Snow lol.
 
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