I've got Pineapple Sponges

Sour137

Cleaner Shrimp
#1
Hello all, posted this here as the pests thread felt inappropriate after reading on them a little bit. As the tittle suggests, I have what I'm 99% sure are pineapple sponges. I could try and post pics but they're not going to be good enough to really nail down an ID. They're pretty exclusively in the sump leading me to believe that my DT residents are picking off the ones up there. So a couple questions that came up while I was reading.

1 - Are they indicative of any areas in the tank I should be concerned about? I think I had read high nitrates but I could be mixing them up with something else.

2 - Several months ago I had purchased some(5) snails for the sump and all of them had died leading me to believe that there wasn't enough food for them. I know that there is a bristle worm in the low flow section of the sump, I placed him there to deal with the detritus, but I'm wondering that since there is a clear ecosystem in the sump now, will there be enough food for a new batch of snails to survive?

3 - I had read a post dating back several years that the poster had claimed a member of his local club had gotten his plumbing jammed with pineapple sponges. Has anyone heard of this happening? seems like they would need to be in pretty epic populations to achieve that.
 

SkyShark

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
I haven’t heard of pinanple sponges causing any types of problems. In my experience their populations will fluctuate pretty dramatically over time.
What are the snails in the sump for? Which types are you getting? Some feed exclusively on algae which might not be sufficiently populated in the sump to keep them alive. Maybe cerinth snails would be good for the sump. I like your idea about tossing bristle worms in. I also toss asterina stars and some micro brittle stars in for cleanup.
 

Sour137

Cleaner Shrimp
#3
I think they were conehead snails. It would be surprising to me that there is a lack of algae in there as I'm watching a spinning column of Chaeto. I get what you're saying though. Every so often I'll scrape the algae off the sides of the sump baffles and walls. Do you think this could be preventing the snails from getting enough food?
 

SynDen

Administrator
Staff member
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#4
Hello all, posted this here as the pests thread felt inappropriate after reading on them a little bit. As the tittle suggests, I have what I'm 99% sure are pineapple sponges. I could try and post pics but they're not going to be good enough to really nail down an ID. They're pretty exclusively in the sump leading me to believe that my DT residents are picking off the ones up there. So a couple questions that came up while I was reading.

1 - Are they indicative of any areas in the tank I should be concerned about? I think I had read high nitrates but I could be mixing them up with something else.

2 - Several months ago I had purchased some(5) snails for the sump and all of them had died leading me to believe that there wasn't enough food for them. I know that there is a bristle worm in the low flow section of the sump, I placed him there to deal with the detritus, but I'm wondering that since there is a clear ecosystem in the sump now, will there be enough food for a new batch of snails to survive?

3 - I had read a post dating back several years that the poster had claimed a member of his local club had gotten his plumbing jammed with pineapple sponges. Has anyone heard of this happening? seems like they would need to be in pretty epic populations to achieve that.
1- I'd say they are more indicative of a healthy tank, they are good filter feeder, and any cryptic zone in your tank is likely to have them.

2- Ya most snails need algae to survive, not detritus, and unless you are lighting the sump for a fuge, then they likely wont do well down there, keep them in the main tank. I have a fuge on my tank though, so I have quite a few down there

3- This would be an pretty extreme case I would think, most pineapple sponges dont get that big and lie low in flow zones. I think snails clogging up the pipes in much more probable though
 
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