Zoa and sponge in rock

[-Keith-]

I bought a good-size (~6"), wild harvested, zoa colony from my LFS. When I got it home and opened the bag, there was a definite but not over powering smell. Since the zoa looked fine, I assumed there was some spounge dying. There were no "chicken liver" sponges on the rock but there seemd to be a black sponge inside the live rock. After breaking open the rock, it was clear the "rock" was more sponge than rock.

After doing a fresh water dip. I removed all the zoa from the spounge/rock and reattached them to other rocks/plugs. After a few hours, all the zoas were open appeared content.

My question is, did I over react? Anyone with negative experiences from die off from rock boring sponges? I'm pretty sure everything will be fine with the frags but I would preferred to have 1 large colony over the 20 frags I now have.

 

[ecotoxlady]

Hey Keith, I think you made the right move. Both myself and others I know have lost beautiful colonies due to sponge die-off and when it comes to salvaging zoas, I think it is always better to ere on the side of caution than risk losing beautiful zoas.

 

[yoshiod9]

you did the right thing-- hopefully, you won't have any issue with sponges like i did. i had a sponge that i would swear i removed all of return multiple times only to finally kill off my raspberry limeade colony. needless to say, i was very saddened by the loss.

 

[zeppelin]

That is one of the big culprits to the dreaded 'fungus'. The sponge inside the rock starts to die in shipping, and causes the zoos to get white fungus within a week or so at the outside. I have found that a 50/50 solution of saltwater and peroxide does wonders. Allow the zoo rocks to soak in the solution for about 5 minutes, then put them in the tank. I used to get the fungus, especially on Solomon zoo rocks, with about 10% of the rocks when I got a group of 40 or so in. Since doing the peroxide dip, I rarely see any fungus on the newly acquired rocks.

 

[Creetin]

I would pull a few polyps off you know dont have sponge on it and place on another rock. Just in case.
I have delt with sponge dieoff and it sucks. One day blammo you zoa's are gone because something ****ed off the sponge.

 

[zarro]

HI

 

[-Keith-]

All, Thanks. The zoas continue to do well.

Zeppelin, Just to clarify. Half saltwater and halh peroxide sounds like a lot of peroxide. When you write peroxide, do you mean the 3% hydrogen peroxide solution you can by a the drug store or some more dilute form?

 

[zeppelin]

Yeo. The 3% bottles that you get at the drug store. I empty the bottle, then fill the bottle with saltwater, and dump that in. 50/50 mix. Soak it for about 5 minutes. You'll see it bubbling like crazy. I've never seen any adverse effects to the coral.