A hitchhiker Sponge that is flourishing

[tannersmith200]

hey guys
so I have a 28g nano reef and it is 13 months old.
I have noticed that I have a yellow sponge growing like crazy in my tank. The weird thing is, is that I have never had success with sponges before. I have never had a sponge in this particular tank.
yesterday I was cleaning the tank and noticed what looked like weird kind of cyano but when I looked closer, it was a sponge. I can see the clear tubes opened up filtering water. This sponge has spread all over this rock.
Does anyone know what kind of sponge it is?
Really cool how stuff just grows out of nowhere.

 

[reefkprz]

sponges are some of my favorite things, I couldn't tell you what species that is but I have had it (or something similar) before. some hitchiker sponges do very well in moderately aged tanks. some times too well. keep an eye on it that it doesn't start overrunning corals, which can happen.
In the wild you can find zoanthid/sponge colonies where the sponge grows amongst the zoas to protect itself from predation by absorbing the toxins in the zoa. I can't remember where I read the article that mentioned that but I thought it was neat, and you zoa/sponge picture reminded me of it.
I might say, one of the reasons it is probably doing so well is ample food, also shown by the tufts of algae and the cyano bubbles so there is definitely plenty of nourishment kicking around. It doesn't look like the algae is out of control but I would guess your pretty close to the border of too many nutrients.

 

[tur4k]

Quote:
Originally Posted by reefkprZ http:///t/385263/a-hitchhiker-sponge-that-is-flourishing#post_3389536
In the wild you can find zoanthid/sponge colonies where the sponge grows amongst the zoas to protect itself from predation by absorbing the toxins in the zoa. I can't remember where I read the article that mentioned that but I thought it was neat, and you zoa/sponge picture reminded me of it.
I have a crazy sponge growing out of a Zoa rock. The sponge is now about twice the size of whats in this picture. The picture is kinda crappy because the flash was on. Oh well.