Sponge growth

[divemonster]

Ok, I almost broke my arm patting myself on the back with FINALLY getting sponges to thrive in my tank. This may sound really strange but it was my high maintenance 6g nano cube that gave me the clues I needed to solve the puzzle. Exposing the sponge to NO AIR whatsoever was probably the biggest part of the success. Here are some photos
I call this sponge a Flower Sponge, but I have seen it called a Paddle sponge too

You can see how it has attached itself to the rock. It's almost a year old.

Here's the strawberry vase sponge

As you can see it is attaching itself to the rock. I've been worried about this beautiful sponge. It was at the top of the bag in shipping and 75% of the sponge was exposed to air. It has died back alot. But being the optimist I keep hoping it will somehow pull through.

Here is one of the stony corals next to the strawberry sponge and you can see the sponge is growing onto the rock

The depth of field is not as shallow in this picture as much as the one above.

 

[shadowbearwv]

Those are some amazing sponges. All mine seem to dissovle or get nipped to death by the decorators.

SB

 

[Yogre]

Those are lookin' really nice, Divemonster!

SB,
Mine are dissolving as well. I pulled one out yesterday that had a couple of blisters on it, out of the tank it smelled like death. I think my ongoing anti-algae efforts are doing them in. (High Mg, and GFO to remove PO4).

 

[noahm]

So what is the secret? details please.

 

[letik]

What do you mean by no-air?

 

[divemonster]

NO AIR means that you do not expose the sponge to air by removing it from the water. After a new sponge has been acclimated to your tank environment take it out of the specimen bag underwater. You may get a little of the water from bag in your tank, but as along as you don't dump the whole bag out into your tank a little bit shouldn't be catastrophic. If you are moving a big/tall sponges around try to keep it all underwater. I have a red "antler" sponge that is very tall. I was moving it to another spot and accidently exposed 6" of the top branches to the air for only a few seconds. Those sections turned white and died off. Thank goodness I did not expose the base to the air.

sponges like quite a bit of flow so make sure that are placed where they get water moving around them. At least that has been my experience after observing them for a period of 1 year (not very long I know, but it's all I have to go on). Sponges in low flow areas of my tank shrank (and almost died) until they were moved to a higher flow area.

Water quality is important. I'm not sure how I would define my water quality. I do not have any media filters or canister filters on my 55g reef tank. I have a skimmer and a refugium/sump. I do 7-10% water changes weekly and I vacuum out the debris from the sump as part of the weekly h2o change.

My parameters typically are:
Specific Gravity: 1.025
Ammonia: 0
Nitrates: < .2 ppm
Nitrites: 0
PH: 8.2
Calcium: 475
Phosphate (PO4): < 0.3 ppm
Alkalinity: 11dKH
Temp: 75 in winter to 79 in summer

my conclusion from my meager experience thus far is that all sponges hate air, it kills them. Some last longer after being exposed to air but eventually they all dissolve and die.

 

[Yogre]

No air at all... that's where I think I went wrong. I can't remember for sure but I think I might have taken my sponges out of the bag and exposed them to the air for just a few seconds. I've lost almost all of them, at any rate.