What's going on with this black thing?

[frenchie]

also try getting some out without exposing to air and try treating it with chemiclean see what happens if it goes away than it could be a cyano bacteria.

 

[Shooter7]

Belive me, I know what cyano looks like and this is 100% not cyano. And cyano doesn't do what I've been showing in these pics. This thing was jet black and had little porous openings in some places on it. Definitely a sponge or related thing.

 

[michael78]

Shooter,

I'm no expert and a relatively hard learned novice in this hobby but from what you describe and from your photo I just wanted to add that I have the same black sponge happily living in my tank. It came in on the live rock obviously but what I found interesting was that during the tanks cycle it turned into the little blob things. I came to the conclusion that it was most likely the stress that caused its blob transformation. If it was an asexual attempt to reproduce it failed in my system. The same type of stress may have occured when you revamped your sump. Its been 9 months now and its back to its normal self (like your original picture).

I think its a neat little bit of diversity as long as it behaves.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Shooter7]

Interesting....thanks, appreciate the input. And welcome to local board. Stop in some more and share some of your hard learned lessons.