Will My Sponge Bleach?

Hmmm, the carbon/ silica dosing is interesting. i know that some species use silica to build its structure.

I also heard about the current changes being a bad idea. From what I read they adjust to the position and force of the flow and if you change it, I have heard it to be highly detrimental.

I appreciate both of your inputs m2434 and inwall75! This is such a difficult subject to research since few people have had continued success with them.

Do you guys recommend any specific variety of phytoplankton? I've heard that some have too large of particles to be "eaten" by the sponge.

 

Many use plain ole Calcium Carbonate too (CaCO3)

Beyond their beauty, this is one of the coolest things about them. They can change their cell structure. If you do change the flow, don't do it often. Can you imagine if humans could do this. Ouch, my hand got chopped off in a farming accident. Oh well, I'll just grow a new hand where my elbow is. While they will do this, it does NOT happen overnight. If you do change the flow where it's blowing against the osculum, it will disappear and reappear on the other side of the sponge where the flow is working with the sponge Vs against it. I've never tried a sponge in a reef with a serious wavemaker in it but I would imagine it wouldn't do well for the reasons mentioned above.

Many sponges contain {small amounts of} palytoxin. Treat them with the same respect you treat palythoa and zoanthids. Wash those hands and don't rub mucus membranes.

I'm certainly not an expert. A lot of this is trial and error. For years I believed the best place for a sponge to be was out of the light, in a cave in my live rock. (DON'T DO THIS!) They like quite a bit of flow but make it laminar flow. Some sponges are photosynthetic....others are not. Make sure you research your particular sponge.

I like to keep a lot of odd critters. Most of my odd critters seem to have benefitted by switching to Phyto-Feast which relies more on some of the smaller species of phyto than Nannochloropsis. However, this is just observation and was not done using scientific methods. As I stated previously.....trial and error.

 

Well, I drove an hour out of my way to pick up the sponge from a gigantic LFS near me and only then found out that it was a "half red ridge/ half brown decay" sponge . Aka- i wasn't about to purchase something that was already on its way out, especially not as my first attempt at keeping a sponge.

So...I will probably order it online. I saw reefs2go had some pretty good prices on them. I'll let you guys know if I get one.