Fan sponge bleaching!

Hi, I've noticed over the last few days that my orange fan sponge is starting to bleach sponge one edge. All my parameters, other corals are good. The sponge itself is in a high flow area and quite well shaded. The bleaching is not completely white yet it's just started to fade and lose its orange colour. I have ordered a 6 species phytoplankton which I am hoping will maybe help the sponge. Will this help or am I fighting a losing battle? Any advice will be much appreciated

 

how long have you had it and have you regularly fed it? im far from being an expert on sponges, I have been able to keep some hitchhikers going for a while but ultimately lost them.... not the easiest critter to keep...but again im not expert.....

 

I've had it around a month. I haven't been target feeding phytoplankton as of yet but will do as of tomorrow. Do you think it's savable, as I said, it's not white yet, just heading that way. Thanks for the reply

 

not sure man, a picture would give people with more experience than me with sponges a better idea. do you know what species it is? to my knowledge sponges are very difficult to keep. target feeding does help but the other side of the coin is that you may be polluting your water quality in the long run doing so....

 

Will post picture tomorrow, then hopefully that will give people a better idea. Thanks

 

best of luck to you both

 

Has the sponge been exposed to air at all? (i.e. during a water change)

 

Definitely not. 100% no air exposure. It's a mystery. It is happening very slowly though so I'm hoping the phytoplankton will revive it. Other than that it looks ok, I.e, no shrivelling up etc.... I hope it is the cause of the problem. The only other thing it may be is as the sun is passing the house it is possible at some point the sun may have got to it. Although I do normally close the curtain until the sun has passed.... I really don't know

 

Well there's your problem. Why purchase an animal knowing its needs but not doing anything about it?

Usually once they start it's hard to stop. Frag off the discolored area and hope for the best (as well as feed feed feed). If you aren't familiar with sponge's feeding habits, look them up.

Nonphotosynthetic coral/inverts can't bleach, they don't have zooxanthellae, hence the NPS part. Bleaching is the expulsion of all zooxanthellae. Just because an animal is non photosynthetic doesn't mean it can't handle light.

I've also found sponges to be very intolerant of changes in chemistry, as well as even minute amounts of nitrates. They also generally don't fair well in sand.