red ball sponge

[Kung]

My father in law just bought one and is now concerned that if it should die, it would take down the system. It's pretty big, so his fears are at least justified, I think.

What would be some warning signs that a ball sponge isn't doing so well?

 

[dendro982]

Mine declined without harming the tank, red-orange one.
Sighs of declining: white spots (light tan, actually), disintegration.
Try to place it where not too much crud will accumulates on the surface and don't clean it from red slime with a toothbrush.

 

[billyWhite]

Make sure you put it in the shade, otherwise it will get coated with algae and just die off. LFS man didn't warn me about that...

It's real easy to see when these go downhill, but for mine, it was too late. Like dendro said, mine started to get squishy and white before I pulled it out. It actually started to float, too.

 

[GoingPostal]

Mine has hung on for about a year now but it did start to shrink when I had it in a different tank, now it's just in the back of my tank behind the rocks, I had to go double check it was still there. I'd been told these can't be out of the water and mine was several times.

 

[phoenix]

Also - as for any sponge, do not expose it to air which can result in air bubbles inside the sponge and death. Sometimes this occurs when transferring from the store to tank and sometimes due to taking the sponge out of the tank to remove algae.

 

[LeslieH]

I think that "exposing a sponge to air will cause it to die" might be a myth. During field work I've frequently had sponges out of the water and they were perfectly healthy afterwards. Death could be due to rough handling, and abrupt change in water parameters or light exposure.