Sponge help please

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Scottieandhelen

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jan 20, 2013
Messages
38
I have a friend that has a sick sponge his water is fine. He has had some high levels of nitrates but the are pulling back in. Any suggestions on saving it? The only change is he went from t-5 lights to LEDs. Thanks in advance
 

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A lighting change shouldn't effect a sponge, as they are mostly filter feeders. "His water is fine", may be the problem. Does he add any food to the water column for it?
Some of the more ornate sponges are not easy to keep.
 
Thank you for the response. If it is food what should he use any good suggestions?
 
Phytoplankton would be my choice. Be careful though. You could spoil the water putting too much food in the water column. That's the trouble with filter feeding critters in closed systems.
 
It's a 72 gallon bow front , he has several lps and sps corals which are all doing extremely well
 
I copied this-
Invert and/or shake the bottle a few times before opening it. The larger algae cells such as Tetraselmis tend to settle to the bottom.
If you have not used Phyto-Feast before, start with 1 drop per gallon each day (1 teaspoon per 100 gallons) . Your animals will rapidly become accustomed to the phytoplankton (microalgae) and be able to feed on quite a bit more.
If your animals do not "clear" the water in less than an hour - back off on the amount you are adding because your systems is not fully digesting all the microalgae.
A common dosage for a mature system is 1-5 drops per gallon (1-5 teaspoons per 100 gallons) each day, depending on your tank setup and animal density. Use our feed calculator to determine the number of drops to use daily for your setup.





....from here:
Phyto Feast | Reef Nutrition - Premium Fish Feeds for Marine Ornamental Industry
 
Thank you sending the info his way. And no it has never touched air. His tank is growing rapidly everything is doing well exept for the spong, I don't understand it he is starting to get some brown algae settling on the sand but I think that's because he turned of his uv sterilizer for a few days ph is at 8.2 our last water check 3 days ago
 
A UV sterilizer is not going to stop algae from forming on the sand. It sounds like an abundance of the wrong kind of nutrients.
 
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