sponges

[Guest Ominojacu]

I,ve seen some red tree sponges for sale on ebay. From what I have read they usually don't do well and can take as long as a year to waste away. I have also read that to be successful with them, they should be fed phytoplankton and skimming should not be done on the tank. What is the general opinion here? Are they impossible? if feeding them is the only problem, I have phytoplankton cultures going and should have plenty of that. Would their low lighting requirements make it impossible to keep other corals or will they do fine in the PC lighting of my aquapod? I like them and I am willing to do a some extra work, but I don't want to waste my time just see them waste away.

[Steve G]

I kept a yellow tree sponge for a while in my old tank, although the tank crashed for other reasons before anything bad happened to the sponge. I probably kept it six months to a year. Can't remember. They don't grow much and the only major precaution is that you must NOT expose them to air.