Sponge?

[Cherae]

Hi,
In a dark corner of my tank under and in between rocks is a very pretty sponge. Well, I'm pretty certain it's a sponge. The thing is that I can't find it anywhere on the web... I've gone to quite a few different indentification websites, googled sponge images, and looked at the online stores for it. I don't know if it's a keeper or a tosser. And if I try to get rid of it, will it cause more problems. Besides all that...I like it. I am hoping that it's fine and I can just trim it down to size. It's taking a lot of real estate in that corner, which isn't a problem now because I'm just now stocking my tank but if I can't trim it, it could take over.

My camera isn't doing it any justice and I read that sponges don't like to be moved or introduced to the air... so I'll try to describe it and then post best pics I can without bugging it.

The center of it is yellow, under a rock which I moved out of the way to take the picture. The outsides are blueish-green and have large tubes that you can peer into to see the yellow. The tubes crush easy when I clean the glass with the mag-float...but reappear within days after said crushing. The blue-green areas look furry, while the yellow is more smooth. There is always a lot of tank dirt, food and sand that settles on it. Oh and it's now about 6 inches long, tall, and wide.

My first post, so I'll try to post a pic of it in a sec. I hope someone out there recognises it and can give me some more info on it.
Thanks again,

 

[Cherae]

another pic...

Another pic of it without the top rock, you can see the yellow better on this one.

 

[returnofsid]

Welcome to Reef Frontiers! It's always nice to see more and more Spokane residents on here. It does appear to be typical sponges. Sponges, for the most part, are beneficial filter feeders, helping to keep up water quality. If it is something you want to remove, you can do so, though, without worrying about any problems.

 

[Cherae]

Wow thanks for the fast response. So I can cut it back without killing it? And is it something other people might want to share?

 

[akunochi]

Yeah you should be able to cut it back. I would try and get the trimming large enough to attach in the fuge under a rock or in a cryptic fuge.

 

[Husker12181]

That is a huge piece of sponge I wish mine would get that big. I actually haven't seen one bigger then about a half dollar coin size in a home aquarium.

 

[Cherae]

That is exactly why I thought it might be something else. Especially since most of the posts/info I've read on them is that they are hard to keep alive and mine is thriving to say the least! I have a newer tank (6mo) in which I have made a lot of newbie mistakes in so I started questioning if it really was a sponge. Glad to have concensus on it.

 

[returnofsid]

The common Hitchhiker Sponges are very easy to keep alive and usually live in darker, more criptic areas. The more colorful sponges, that we actually buy, have a very low survival rate.