Sponge taking over Zoos?

[GatorWPB]

It looks like I have some white sponge on one of my zoo rocks that appears to be choking out my zoos. It has these thin white strings too, which Ive never seen before (not sure if they are from the sponge). Not sure if its even a sponge. The zoos used to be very dense and now are spread out. Anyone seen anything like this?
Should I be scraping it off my zoos?
I have some cool palys that I would be concerned about it taking over them.
Thanks.

[Peter Eichler]

It's pretty common. I scrape it off as best you can then leave the rock out of water for several hours to hopefulyl kill the remaining sponge. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't...

[seapug]

you can thin it out but I'd avoid trying to completely eliminate it. Some Zoas grow only in the presence of certain sponges and fuse themselves in it. Scraping off the sponge might mean scraping off polyps.

[craab]

I've had it before, I used to scrap off what I could and then hit it with some air and freshwater dip. Most sponges can not handle being exposed to air for long.

[z_rivers]

Originally posted by Peter Eichler
It's pretty common. I scrape it off as best you can then leave the rock out of water for several hours to hopefulyl kill the remaining sponge. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't...

If you leave it out of water for several hours all youll be left with is a rock.

[ThePhytoMan]

Originally posted by z_rivers
If you leave it out of water for several hours all youll be left with is a rock.

I have (accidentally) left a zoanthid rock out of the water for 3 hours and they were doing pretty bad for 2-3 days, but on the 4th day, it was like nothing ever happened to them.

[GoingPostal]

Zoanthids get left out of water for hours at a time daily on many reefs, they store water inside and can survive for several days sometimes. A few hours might hurt some but shouldn't be the end of them.

[Peter Eichler]

Originally posted by z_rivers
If you leave it out of water for several hours all youll be left with is a rock.

As others have pointed out that's not true. I even left one small colony out overnight on accident and it was open and looked fine when I got home from work.

[GatorWPB]

Thanks all!! You guys rock (lol)

I really dont have the ability to take the rock out of the water.
Also, I cant really scrape too much. I will do what I can but the rock is at the bottom and a support for my other rocks.
Looks like I dont have to worry much about it.