need sea sponge help

[gator75946]

i have a orange sea sponge thats starting to turn white in spots. ive had it for a good six months and it its been doing fine until about 3 weeks ago when it started to get the white spots. my tank chemisty is fine and i feed phyto feast to my tank every other day. does any one know why its doing this and if there any way to stop it and save the sponge.

 

[meowzer]

Welcome to SWF
sounds like it is dieing.....why don't you tell us EVERYTHING about your tank...size...age....filtration...you know...everything

 

[gator75946]

i have a 75 gallon reef ready tank that is about 2 years old with a trigger system sump and protein skimmer. i have four fish, a yellow tang, a kole tang, a yellow striped clown, and a desjardini.my coral consist of two types of mushroom polyps, some starburst, a frogspawn, my sponge, and some feather dusters that seem to come from nowhere. i also have two sand stars, 2 turbo snail, and about 10 to 15 nerite snails. i also have about 50 lbs of live rock a a power head to add to the circulation of water. my lighting consist of 4 t5s 2 blue 2white and led moonlights all set on timers. i did a water change when i noticed the spots on the sponge even though my fish guy it all looked good. my temp in my tank stays around 78-80.

 

[meowzer]

I think you could use more circulation....what type of PH is it that you have? I had a tree sponge once that was great....and then ALL of a sudden it started getting white spots...never figured out why.....and it finally just all turned white and died.....I even tried cutting off a piece below the white...SORRY...I don't think that really helps you

 

[gator75946]

I have the one power head and the two of the sump water I the aquarium it pretty good from what I was told but I'm still pretty new at this and any info helps I thought about some more power heads but was told I had enough circulation I should have bought them any way. My ph is running right around 8.0 which is pretty good right

 

[gator75946]

And the two from the sump Water circulation in the aquarium

 

[aquaknight]

99.9% of these tree/ball/fan sponges die in captivity. Feeding bottled phyto, though a valiant effort, is probably not exactly what the sponge traditionally feeds on. A couple to several months is generally the lifespan for these guys in aquariums.
White spots on the sponge are a sign of tissue recession, and an all to present indicator of the demise ahead.