Oooo,  Pretty Sponges

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First of all, sea sponges do they go under corals or under inverts?

Here's the other thing... are they safe for a tank?
Are they toxic? Reef safe? Has anybody been able to successfully keep them in tank?

I saw some really nice sponges over the weekend and well [smiley=idea.gif]. I thought it'd be cool to start a thread on sponges and see what happens.

 

When we got our aquacultured live rock, there were lots of sponges on it. So far, much of it has survived, especially the encrusting kinds. The more elaborate ones with finger-like protrusions, etc. had died back. We're waiting to see if any will regrow. My guess, though, is that most won't; once they're exposed to air, most reported die.

 

sponges that come on lr are pretty hardy. i had originally gotten lr in the fed ex and it had a lot of die off on it i actually cleaned off some of the dead stuff because it smelled so bad and a lot of them were sponges. after time they started growin back, there reef safe that act as filters in a tank. after scrubbing them off i ended up with several types. qtips, pink with long stems off them, several small yellow ones, golfball lookin ones, a huge encrusting white one underneath all the rockwork, and now i found a bright orange one growing between 2 rocks in the back of the tank near the top

 

I'm not talking about the tiny little sponges that hitch with LR. I'm talking about a nice chunk of Purple Sponge, Green Sponge, or even (my favorite) Fire Sponge. I've read that they need good strong water flow, because they filter feed. Do they need strong lighting as well? And my biggest worry is whether they're toxic to tankmates or not?

 

As far as sponges go BE CAREFUL if you wan to smell one of the worst smells in your life let a large sponge die in your tank. it will stink up the whole house. Putting a large sponge into your tank also poses a problem as to how you get it in without exposing it to air which will kill it. ( every sponge I have ever seen exposed to air dies within a week) The problem is displacement how do you have enough water in the transfer container and remove enough from the tank in order to put transfer container under tank water, plastic fish bags work but still not easy. If you are going to buy a sponge ask how it was collected and then put a deposit on it and let it stay at the lfs to see if it lives.

 

Definitly be careful with sponges. Your doing the right thing by asking and researching them. Most sponges will die, if air is allowed to stay entrapped in them. Some sponges can take alot of abuse, the pink finger seems to be fairly hardy and resistent to air damage (as it's found exsposed tidepools to pretty deep) as is the chicken liver and the white (non light situation)>black (with light) finger one. Most sponges for sale at LFS aren't going to survive to long. Most collectors expose them to air, hold them with other types of sponges (chemical warfare) or just simply handle them like, well a sponge. From what I've been told, there's basicly 2 types of sponges, calcium based and silica based. If you've got the latter (silica based), your gonna have a fairly hard time, in the long run, maintaining them. Most that survive in out tanks are calcium based.