How do you take care of sponges?

[smoney]

How do you take care of sponges, my lfs always has this orange sponge for like 10 bucks, and I want to know if their any good, or how to take care of them.

 

[blemmy_guy]

You just watch them sit there!!

There easy to take care of. Because you dont do a thing for them except keep your tank water in good condition. There filter feeders, you could feed some of the liquid foods, but i never do. There a great addition to your tank, because they add a lot of color. Todd

 

[thomas712]

The commone ones that grow on your rock you really don't have to do anything. Others that you are deliberatly growing can be fed with DT's live phytoplankton if you wish.
Thomas

 

[smoney]

Their is this one blue sponge I was looking at getting this one blue sponge, it looked really neat. It says that they need low lighting? is that true? and it also says they are difficult to keep?

 

[mudplayerx]

I had an orange sponge that died. They are impossible to keep with metal halide lighting. If I placed in a low light area of the tank (which it needs), it wasn't getting the high flow it needed. If I placed it in a high flow area, it would get cyano all over it from the lighting.
It took about 2 months before it started turning translucent and dying.
I don't recommend sponges from my experience.
ps- if you buy one anyways, NEVER expose it to air at all. Taking spoges out of the water is a guaranteed death.

 

[smoney]

I dont know, I was thinking about getting that blue one, but even then it is sort of expensive

 

[1journeyman]

I've actually had good luck with sponges. I've got a couple of different varieties that have popped up on my live rock.
If a sponge requires low light then make sure you have it in good, bulk current. Just aiming a powerhead at it can damage it. You need a good flow of water constantly moving over it.
As was said.. don't expose it to air for 1 second. Air gets trapped in little bubbles in it's tissue and kills it.

 

[smoney]

Have you had any of these blue sponges, there is a link below to what it looks like.
http://www.homestead.com/reefenginee...lue_sponge.jpg

 

[butterfly7]

that was nice. I have a question if i just have standard lighting would that do the job for sponges?like with live rock I know u dont need strong light.oh and good luck with your sponge.

 

[mudplayerx]

Try to get one of the photosynthetic ones if you can. They are much easier to take care of. They still need the high flow, but you can put them directly under the lights.