Question regarding Sponges

I've had my 30 gallon FOWLR tank for roughly 2 months now and was wondering if I could add a sponge to it?

I know corals need specific lighting and other things but how about sponges?

I know this is a general question, but any insight would be helpful.

My lighting is the reef sun 50/50 ...

 

as far as i know, sponges are not photosynthetic so the lighting doesn't matter. i believe that they require excellent water quality and lots of filter feeding. You will need to target feed them some form of plantonic food. Not sure that i would recommend for a young tank but am not an expert.

 

I had a sponge that I added to my tank a while back... did great for around 9 months and then started receding... I haven't heard of many folks who were successful keeping sponges long term... would be nice if someone who has would chime in.

There is some speculation that you would need to add a source of silica to the tank if the available silica is used up.

I have sponges growing that came in on live rock, and it makes me wonder if their growth is taking away from the nutrients that my added sponge needs to survive.

 

Bump

 

You probably need to add planktonic algae to supplement, or something to spur algae growth (like silica, as gabba mentioned) or bacterial growth (possibly the biopellets everyone has been talking about). The tank is definitely too new to have enough for a sponge to eat right now, without any changes to additives or feedings.

 

Not an answer to your question at all, but there are some leather corals that don't need much light if you just want something new in the tank. Sorry no experience with sponges.