What's growing around my goniopora?

[Fluxora9]

I'll attach a picture. My goniopora looks pretty stressed, not sure what's going on.

[starwave9]

I'm not thinking it's a sponge, though. The goni does look a bit under the weather, and I'm worried. They're notoriously tricky to keep healthy, so I'm not surprised.

[Fluxora9]

"This thing shows up, and my goniopora's been retracted since. Had it for a while, no issues till this sponge-like thing appeared. It's grown fast, just a day or two, and now it's all around the base of the goniopora, nowhere else. I've read about these sponges, they're supposed to be harmless, even beneficial, but I'm still concerned. I'll be keeping an eye on it, updating if anything changes."

[Aurorax]

I'm not sure if it's related, but I've got a bunch of different spones in my tank and they've never caused any issues. I've had a couple of gonioporas in the past, but they never lasted. They'd look great for a month or so, then slowly decline. How long have you had your goniopora?

[Fluxora9]

I've had the goniopora for 5-6 months now and I've gotta say, it's been a real trooper. I've lost all my other LPS corals except for this one, and it's outlived them by a long shot. I know they're supposed to be tough to keep, but it's been doing great until this sponge thing showed up. Now I'm seeing my hermit crabs starting to pick at the sponge, so I'm hoping they'll just eat the whole thing and save me the trouble.

[zenoxa]

Agreed on the sponge concern. Considering the Goniopora's hard skeleton, I'd worry about the sponge eventually smothering it over time. Definitely worth keeping a close eye on, especially since it could potentially succumb to other issues first. For some insight, I found an old article from Advanced Aquarist that talks about inverts like this sponge - it's from 2002, but still relevant: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/12/inverts

[flynix]

If that's the sponge I'm thinking of, it should be pretty easy to just manually remove it from the frag, especially since it's already causing some issues with your goniopora.