Spider Sponge Care

[doorlady]

Anyone have any experience with a Spider Sponge? Got a nice one about a week and half ago, he did great for the first three days, since then he does not open and is not looking as good. What could be wrong?
He is in a 180 gallon with fish and mixed corals, everything else in the tank is doing very well. We have a variety of LPS & SPS corals.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Does it look like these?

I understand that they are pretty easy to keep. Meisen was selling them in MTRC frag swap in January. He said that it was easy to keep.

Sponge does not tolerate an exposure to air. Some needs to be fed, too, while many sponges do fine in a mature tank without feeding.

Tomoko

 

[doorlady]

Yes, it looks like that. He was as open and pretty as the first picture for three days, now it has not been open for a week.
What should I do?

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Have you fed it?

 

[doorlady]

Yes, it ate real well for the first couple of days, feed it mysis shrimp and oyster eggs and other things, still blowing things over it every day.

 

[doorlady]

Yes, it ate real well for the first couple of days, feed it mysis shrimp and oyster eggs and other things, still blowing things over it every day.

 

[wpecoul]

The spider sponge (or lightning sponge) is not only non-photosynthetic, but it apparently doesn't like much light at all. Shade it if you can.

 

[gflat65]

Tuck it under a rock with medium flow. Be sure to feed it. Phyto up to mysis should be fine.

 

[BHAMR6]

Mine never did anything until i lost it behind a rock when i finally got it out it opened up good for awhile then stopped doing anything

 

[doorlady]

I did have it in a shaded area but it was not getting much water flow. We moved it today into an area where it can get more flow but now it is not shaded, I can't seem to win with this one.

 

[gflat65]

Let it sit for a few days and drop some phyto in at night. The polyps started coming out at night first on mine. I just dug it out from under a rock last night and half of the sponge part I gone, but the zoanthid ribbon is still full.

 

[doorlady]

Spider sponge is doing better since the move into the better flow. About 7 heads have opened up when we feed tonight. I feel much better about it now. gflat- the strawberry patch monti is doing so good, it is starting to turn green in the base, the favia is also doing so well.

 

[gflat65]

Excellent. Hopefully, the strawberry patch will grow faster for youthan it does for me. Not sure why when most monti's grow like wild fire, many of mine aren't. There's growth, just not as much as I'd expect...

 

[doorlady]

Spider sponge doing well now. We are seeing growth and all polyps are open. DT's reef blend seems to make a BIG difference.

 

[doorlady]

Check out the pic.

 

[doorlady]

 

[prncalbrt]

That is an awesome piece! Who did you get it from if I may ask ?

 

[doorlady]

We got it from Jim at Aquarium Fantasies in Montgomery. Hope that it continues to grow so that we can frag it.

 

[BHAMR6]

Aquarium fantasies is great i wish i lived closer