under attack | need advise

I would try moving it to the light.
I am not 100% sure it would work. But, I have the exact same sponges in my sump. They just grow and spread like mad down there. Yet none can exist in my DT for whatever reason. I never really put much thought into it honestly. But it might be because of light.
I would try it first. Or, frag the hammer and nuke that rock. Hammer is very easy to frag. Just take a small saw or really sharp pair of trimmers and cut the skeleton.

 

PackLeader is on the right track. What type of sponge is that? I like it. None of mine extend like that.

 

that's a deviously evil brilliant idea ;D

The sponge's main mass is under the rock (i.e. out of the light) with a few strands on the top.

It is basically only on this one rock with very little connecting to adjacent rocks.... it's time to act b4 it gets too bad.

You want to trade? I'll trade. No problem. I'll take anything for it. (Tomball TX area (NW of Houston))

Maybe I can peel it will probably try to at least... at a minimum, i hope i can peel it off the adjacent rock.

this rock is maybe 8-10" long by maybe 5" wide... it's not terribly big, but it isn't tiny either.

ugh

 

I wish I knew... I have a thread in ID This but no real answers. I can't find it on google either.

 

I'm scared to death of doing this, but I'll try... I can't do more damage to the hammer than I would if I were to nuke it :-/

Maybe I'll end up with 3 hammer's instead of a 3 head one

I will try this weekend, but will keep this thread bumped in case anyone else has a great idea or pertinent information...

 

I have decided I am going to simply flip this rock over exposing the sponge to my light and also (BONUS) getting my hammer in the shade.

I'll see how that does. I will be peeling/trimming the sponge back as well.

Will post pics when done.

 

When I got my hammer from the LFS, he just chopped off a piece with three heads and glued it to a rock. The thing has more than doubled in size since I got it, so chopping on it didn't seem to hurt it. I would probably be tempted to frag the hammer and then deal with the rock separately.

 

until i pulled the rock and found the hammer came out quite easily... so the benefit of flipping the rock was lost... so I stuck it in a bucket of freshwater and fragged the hammer :-/

how long till the sponge is dead? if i don't take too long, just stick rock back in tank or go through entire nuke process?

I'll add pics of my fraggin work later... turns out I had 4, not three heads and I am pretty sure one of them will now be toast as it split off a corner of one head :-/ And ended up with two frags... glues curing now on a glass (keep crabs off) and then I will be moving them to a shaded area of tank.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/asap/how-long-kill-sponge-72783.html#post701983

 

just pull it off the rock, should come off easy. or let it grow and consider all the cool spongivores now available to you. in the mean time it will polish the water

 

They say there is a worldwide shortage of sponge taxonomists, and most of the dozen or so experts are bald from pulling all their own hair out...

As for cowries eating the sponge, it might be possible, since a bunch of species do include sponge in their diets, but it might be difficult to narrow down which species might eat YOUR SPECIES of sponge. If I wanted to try the cowry option, I think I'd opt for a generalist feeder like Cypraea (Monetaria) annulus or C. (M.) moneta. Those are probably about the only species that are likely to be available anyway, with the exception of a couple of larger species that aren't really known to be sponge eaters (e.g., C. tigris, C. arabica, and C. spadicea).

It would be interesting to see if they'd eat it.

Cheers,



Don