sponges

[tigershark]

i've bought an orange colour sponce today .... read from some articles that sponges are very difficult to keep...... they need excellent water quality and cannot even tolerate with low nitrate..... not to mention any amount of amonia or nitrite.... but when i ask the boss.... he told me that it is only true for those purple/blue/pink/red sponges, orange is very hardy. My Nitrite and amonia reading are 0 and my nitrate reading is around 40ppm.........anyone have any comment on that? What should i feed with sponge?? are they invert or coral ??

[wedgee]

Wow, Yr nitrate is quite high, so it might be a problem? I dono if sponges dislike NO3 dat much... I think they need high currents, and can be fed with plankton and filter feeding food. Btw, did the boss remove the sponge from the water completely at any time? If he did, i hope yr sponge survives, cause they cant be exposed to air (wat i heard)...

Hmm i dono if they are inverts though...

[pacificbetta]

corals are inverts.

sponges are inverts.

corals are not sponges.

sponges are not corals.

[hongqixian]

If it is the orange spiky sponge you've got a good purchase. Mine died only when I left it out of water after a tank crash. But it grows very slowly. This is not to be confused with the rounded orange sponge that only shows it's sillicaceous spicules when dying and is quite delicate. Blue and purple grow and live for about a few weeks then can suddenly die off.

You cannot take it from water because the air bubbles can clog the pores they filter water through and they get jammed up and die.

I've heard that your skin oils may also be bad for it so try not to touch it.

[Achilles Tang]

If you can't provide live plankton regularly, you will find your sponges shrinking... I didn't have much luck with liquid coral food supplements.

[tigershark]

wedgee- i ask the boss to let me put the sponge myself.... i put the plastic

bag in the tank and minimise the chances of thetting the sponge

to contact the air.... but i notice that the top part of the sponge

did expose in the air for quite some times while bringing it home....

hope it is o.k....

hongqixian- yes, it's a orange spiky sponge....

Achilles Tang- i have those liquid planktoon..... but i dunt really like to use it

as it pollute my water a lot (by my pass experience)... i prefer

to use those dry powder planktoon..... i usually mix it with

the SW in my tank in a small cup and suck it up using

those "pump" provided in my seachem liquid chemicle.... than

slowly "pump" those plankton onto every coral directly.....

izzit the right way??

[B|uEc@rpEt]

Hi TS...

Spikey orange is quite hardy...I keep my sponges alive n growing wif Spray dried plankton...so far so good.

Keep them where currents r stronger to prevent algae from growing.

[tigershark]

o.k.... got your message.... will shift my sponge......