Adding Sponge to Tank

[Hilary]

Has anybody ever deliberately added a sponge to their tank? BZA has a nice looking one (not available now, but on their product list) and it looks like it'd be a nice future addition to my tank, but I don't want to even consider it if there are some hefty cons associated with adding one.

[jnguyen4007]

I heard that some sponge are very beneficial as they help keep your tank clean. In my case, I had that nasty smelly sponge with tentacles that were downright ugly. I eventually took my rocks apart and got rid of those that I couldn't scrub off or kill.

[Hilary]

Yea, I have some of that as well. Some is hidden under the star polyps, but the tentacles are hard to miss. I also have some rock covered in yellow sponge. I've heard that it's a good filter, but wasn't sure if they tended to die off easily, took over tanks, etc.

[treesprite]

the yellow stuff will probably just keep spreading - I would start controlling it before that happens.

 

I wonder if the stuff would be good to have in a fuge-type setup??

Edited March 26, 2008 by treesprite

[davelin315]

What type of sponge are you thinking of adding? Some are poor specimens to even attempt.

[Hilary]

What type of sponge are you thinking of adding? Some are poor specimens to even attempt.

 

I read a posting on another forum by somebody who had a lot of success with Haliclona. All of the sponges I've researched said that they require supplemental feeding, fairly standard parameters, and don't expose them to air. His did great in his tank. He tried fragging it (successfully), put a frag in a new tank and only feed it about once a month, and while it didn't grow as fast as before he noted that it did better than the zoa he also had in the tank.

[treesprite]

I read a posting on another forum by somebody who had a lot of success with Haliclona. All of the sponges I've researched said that they require supplemental feeding, fairly standard parameters, and don't expose them to air. His did great in his tank. He tried fragging it (successfully), put a frag in a new tank and only feed it about once a month, and while it didn't grow as fast as before he noted that it did better than the zoa he also had in the tank.

 

I have on numerous occaisions have sponge-infested rock out of the tank and it absolutely never dies out. In my old tank it was actually growing on the sand as well as the rock, so I'm not sure I totally buy that theory.

[lancer99]

IME the beautiful blue & orange/red sponges that I've deliberately added to my tanks have never lasted for long. Those that survived on LR or sprouted up spontaneously seem to do much better (obviously, in the latter case).

 

I do have one really nice orange encrusting sponge that came in on a Ricordea rock, and even though the rock was shipped "dry," after four months it seems to be doing fine.

 

I'd love to have some of the larger, showier sponges, but until someone comes up with a protocol for keeping them alive, I'll wait.

 

-R