# where can i get a freshwater sponge?



## Shotgun

i have a spare 2.5g tank and im thinking about making a little desktop aquarium. I wanted to try something different this time, so I am thinking about adding a small freshwater sponge. Where the hell can i find one of these things? theyre kind of hard to find! also, do you think some crustacion such as red cherry shrimp would cope well in a sponge tank?

i also understand that sponges are filter feeders, and thus, require some impurities in the water as a source of food. do you think i should use a filter to cycle? for the food problem for the sponge, i will add a drop of chicken broth every day. tell me what you think! *c/p*


:fish-in-bowl:


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## chris oe

I have never seen any in commercial aquarium trade. I almost think you'd need to collect them out of the wild, and am wondering if wild collection is legal? At the very least you'd want to know what species were present in your locale and confirm that the ones that you were looking for were not endangered (you could end up getting arrested for collecting endangered species if you're not careful) and be very careful that you know exactly what they need and have your set up perfect (do you need to culture green water or yeast to feed them? Best have that in place first) before you go take your specimen, so that you don't get it home and have it die. Its a big responsibility taking something from the wild.


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## Shrimpinista

Try this website. I have bought from them several times. They are great people. I use these in my shrimp tanks.
Aquarium Sponge Filter; ATI Hydrosponge Filters and Replacement Sponges.


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## automatic-hydromatic

I don't think that's the kind of sponge he's talking about...


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## Moontanman

Freshwater sponges are not rare but they are often difficult to find. Intake pipes of water treatment plants are a good place to find them, they generally do well in shady locals although some do grow algae in their tissues for food. I've kept them and bryozoans in aquariums, green water (unicellular algae) should feed them but not chicken soup. *r2


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## Shotgun

then where can i get one? are there any places on the internet that sells them? since you have a little experience in keeping freshwater sponges, what should i do to feed them?


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## M1ster Stanl3y

this may sound weird but if you have a nuclear plant next to a river i would hop in a boat and check around there. I lived right across the river from one, my uncles farm was next door to it, and they had all kinds of animals that werent supposed to be in pennsylvania living at the water pipes leading in and out of the plant. When they do their regular cleaning they hafta scrup clams and other animals out of the tubes. Might be a good place to find some sponges. but then again thats only if you live in a nuclear fall out zone.


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## Shotgun

yeah.... i dont live anywhere near a nuclear plant. lol. are there any online stores which sell them?


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## M1ster Stanl3y

Shotgun said:


> yeah.... i dont live anywhere near a nuclear plant. lol.


thats probably a good thing...but hey they pay extremly well. Security guard makes 50-70k. HR 100k +....now if i could only get a job there....


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## Moontanman

Those Creepy Crawlers Can Be Fun, by Ken Goldsmith



> There are a few species of freshwater sponge, all are suitable for the aquarium. They are mostly green or brown, and they are found encrusted on a rock or twig in flowing water. Some reaching the size of a golf ball or larger. If you found a rock which had a sponge attached, you would have an interesting and beneficial tank-mate since sponges are 'filter-feeders.' This means that they filter particulate matter out of the water. Therefore, by filtering out some of the solids they would, to some extent, help to keep the aquarium clean.



I have never seen sponges for sale in freshwater, probably mostly because they all look like a small piece of mud or dirt.

A power plant intake is a great place to find sponges and other unusual small creatures and not because of radioactivity but due to the micro climate created by the power plant, coal fired power plants do this also, even the intake for your city water supply probably has problems due to sponges, bryozoans, clams and other sessile invertebrates. . 

I suggest google as a means to find a source of commercial sponges but if you look closely they are in almost every body of water in North America or any other continent for that matter.


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## audratics

You can buy them from Ward Scientific or Carolina Biological Supply. I can't post the links but if you google the companies and type "living spongilla" it should pull up easily. 

*I have a tank of freshwater snails (just _Pomacea bridgesii _0.0.11) and I've been thinking about adding a freshwater sponge as well. Let me know how it turns out!


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