culturing sponges

[Allmost]

Hello all,
so I have alot of fish that love sponges ... and want to culture them ... or at least try to for occasional snack ...

Im thinking of setting up a seperate 55G tank, with a couple of rock pieces Ihave in my sump of my main tank, full of sponges [the ones that grow on the LR]

From my research and understanding, sponges consume bacteria, need no light, and use carbon as well.

so the tank will be dark, and I will dose carbon and bacteria daily for the sponges to grow. I will also use sponge power from Zeovit, but what other foods should I feed the tank ?

now about removing sponges to feed the tank ... Im thinkin of placing some plastic PVC joints in the tank, and let sponges grow on them, and one by one move them to main tank, let my angels and idol eat it, and move it back to the sponge tank ...

any advice ? post anything that comes to mind, or anything that u might have read about sponges

thanks for reading. I will post a pic next week of the set up ...

 

[altolamprologus]

They need silicate. I think brightwell has a silicate product made for sponges. They love phytoplankton so that woud be good to feed. Be careful when dosing carbon, too much without a skimmer will cause a massive bacterial bloom. When you move the sponges to the display tank and back, keep them submerged in water. Air kills sponges and you want any pieces left after the fish are done to grow back quickly. Other than that, just try to get the fastest growing sponges you can find to make this product the most efficient.

 

[SoLiD]

It's usually the prettier Spider Sponges that are hard to care for. There are also a few sponges that are photosynthetic which makes them easier to care for. Other than the spider sponges, usually most of the others are all easy to care for. IME the ones that feel hard to the touch are slow growers. I bought a nice red one about 4 months ago and it grows slow and loves a ton of flow.

These are my Favorite... but I read that they are so difficult to keep them Thriving.
Australian Spider Sponge:

 

[OodleyBoodely]

Try a series of racks made of eggcrate sitting perpendicular to your water flow for the sponges to grow on. I was reading about the 'duplex sump' concept awhile back and what that is about is growing sponges, tube worms and other critters that consume waste products in the aquarium, and, they used eggcrate in this way. That might be a good search topic to look for ideas. Some of the fastest growing sponges I had in my tanks were volunteers on live rock. Most were white or pale beige colored ones that would grow under the rocks, but, also, the small bright yellow ones that grow all over lr, as well as, a pale purple/pink photosynthetic sponge that grew well in my nano...before I killed it. Some of those white/beige sponges are really hardy and can be easily propagated by pinching off a bit and placing in a dark area of good flow.

 

[knight2255]

Any updates on this?

Anybody have a source for hardy, fast growing sponge?