Moderator: Mustafa
Not keeping them entirely together on purpose....badflash wrote:Terran- just wondering. Are you keeping both of these species together?Both my Mamorkrebs and my Dwarf Cajuns do not tear at the sponges....
So, from my experience I can say that natural sea sponges can be put into tanks immediately after rinsing them thoroughly. No soaking of any kind required. Good observation. I have done some reading on natural sponges and many of them do go through tons of processing. Traditionally, natural sponges freshly harvested from the sea were just left out in the sun until the "tissue" rotted away, then rinsed with clean water and hung out to dry before being sold. That was all the processing done to the sponges before being sold. I'm sure some companies selling natural sponges still don't process them much further than that, if at all. But I have also read of some companies on the internet who pride themselves with having something like 42bjar wrote:All natural sponges I have seen for sale here in sweden have had the same colour as the one pictured here which are chemicaly treated to get that pale colour .When I have been on holiday in greece I have seen natural colored ones for sale they are much darker in colour and would look much more natrual in a tank and probably safer to use
steps in their processing procedure!! 
The only sponge that I actually aged in another tank before adding it to the shrimp was the first one that I tried out....all the rest of them I just placed them in the tank after rinsing....(I just did not include that in my original description because I wanted people to be safe in trying something like this)...Mustafa wrote: Luckily, I went to to another store (big arts and crafts and paints store) and purchased two more sponges. These sponges were packaged in a kind of net (as opposed to the see-through plastic packaging of my first sponge), so I could directly smell them. They had no chemical odor (which I wrongly identified as "spongy" odor prior in this thread) and were a dark, natural color. I was pretty sure that this time it would work. Since I like to experiment (within reason of course) and I was pretty sure that I had gotten the "right" sponge, I thoroughly rinsed the sponges under the tap, tore pieces out of the very large sponge, rinsed the piece thoroughly again, and directly dropped it into one of my shrimp tanks. The shrimp got positively excited (i.e. started picking around frantically) *immediately* and some of them went directly to the sponge to pick on it. The snails also took a liking to the sponge and started climbing around on it. I did not observe the frantic swimming (to get away) and the adverse color changes in the shrimp as I had with my previous sponge. It's been 3 days now and I have had absolutely no adverse observations whatsoever. I have now stuck sponges in all of my tanks and all shrimp reacted the same way to the sponges...positively. If everything continues to work out fine, this might actually turn out to be the most ingenious "tank decoration" idea yet in the shrimp hobby, far surpassing the leaf litter idea. Thanks for the idea Terran!
If you all wonder why I stuck the sponge in the shrimp tank immediately, I can say that the sponge will be colonized by micro-organisms and algae in the shrimp tank eventually, too. No need to stick it into a fish tank first. Obviously, as can be gathered from my reports, sticking the sponge in a fish tank first does not make the difference between "good" and "bad" sponge and life and death for the shrimp. Plus, I don't have any fish anymore, so I don't have the fish tank option anyway.
So, if you purchase a sponge, you should make sure that:
1. the sponge does NOT have a strong, chemical odor that transfers into the water it is soaked in and onto your hands
2. the water you soak the sponge in does not foam when you pour it.
Also, natural sponges that have *not* been treated or bleached tend to have a darker color (i.e. not bright yellow or whitish like artificial sponges tend to be). My first sponge was a bright color, but then I have seen Terran use some pretty bright looking sponges in his tanks, so bleaching by itself might not necessarily load the sponge with chemicals. There must have been some other processing going on with my first sponge for it to be loaded with chemicals and have that strong odor.
When purchasing, if you can't tell by the odor of the sponge if it's "ok" to buy or not (because it might be packaged in plastic instead of netting), then test the sponge in a small container with tank water and snails. If the snails continue behaving normally, the sponge should be ok for shrimp. If the snails "freak out" for a few minutes and then close up, then throw the sponge away and never buy that brand again. If you, for some reason, decided to test the sponge on your shrimp directly, make sure that you closely observe the shrimp's behavior. If the sponge is chemically treated, then the shrimp will start swrimming frantically after a few minutes, which means that they are trying to get away from the chemicals...i.e. they are looking for a way out of the tank. If a shrimp happens to land on such a sponge, then it will immediately zip away from it as if it had been shocked by electricity. If you have a suitable sponge, the shrimp won't display such behavior and may even start picking around more excitedly after putting the sponge in their tank.
Finally, natural sponges are sold under different names such as "sea wool sponge" and "sea grass sponge" etc.. These are actually different species of natural sponges. Sea wool sponges are more expensive than sea grass sponges, but both work just fine in a tank, so no need to buy the more expensive one if you have the choice. Terran is using "sea wool" and I am using "sea grass" and both work fine in a tank. They might have different rates of decay, but we won't know for sure until some time passes and we can report back on that issue. If everything works out fine with all of our sponges, I might make this post into an extended article. Once my camera batteries have recharged I will post some pictures of my newly purchased sponges both in the packaging, dry, wet and inside my tanks with shrimp sitting on them.
PS: I have changed the title of this thread to better reflect the topic of discussion. This will make it easier for people to recognize and take advantage of this thread in future searches.
I was at Home Depot today and I actually thought of buying some but I thought they might not work. But I'll get one next time I gobadflash wrote:I just dropped my "natural sponges" from Home Depot in my shrimp tanks after a week in my sump. These were in net bags and had not smell. Their purpose was for textured painting.
The shrimp and ramshorn snails are all over them. The last time I saw action like wth was with dandelion.
Thanks for the post 
That sounds like a good idea. And that is a good price for Java MossTurtleBoyPW5 wrote:Local pet store had some java moss for two bucks a bunch so I got the last two bunches. Not the nicest looking java moss as some of it is brown but I decided Id wrap some around my sponges... shrimp seem to like it as they can chill on the moss then climb into the sponge.
Thanks for sharing. 
Terran wrote:I look forward to an article about sponges being added to the site…I feel proud that I may have contributed a worthwhile idea…I brag to my friends and family “The sponge idea seems to be working out well for others in keeping shrimps and crayfish”….and my friends and family are like…”I don’t care you’re a nerd” ….lol
Our whole hobby is so weird/strange to many outsiders that it's not worth it to bother explaining what a sponge in a tank is for. 
No kidding...last night a craft store employee caught me licking and sniffing a sponge through its netting. I didn't even try to explain.Mustafa wrote:Ahhh...others (non-shrimp people) just won't understand. In any case, it's a great idea, *we* (i.e. shrimp hobbyists) all know it and that should be enough.
