The Three Amigos Are Sponges

[Subsea]

Orange Cauliflower
https://www.live-plants.com/elephantearsponge.htm
These will collect detritus an must be blown of regularly. Weekly, I vigorously shake it up and place it somewhere different. Sponge are easy to compress, so place sponge in a narrow spot and allow sponge expansion to hold sponge in place.

Red Tree
https://www.live-plants.com/redfingersponge.htm
March 5, 2019
Because of its tall tree branches, the current tends to play havocy with glued joints. Unless tree is attached to a big rock, the currents will blow the tree down. When shaking debris off sponges, I often move to a differrent spot. With aquascaping tall & short, I like tall to start from the bottom. To accomplish that, I use 1/2” pvc about 2” long and push it vertically into sandbed. Now it becomes a rod holder to allow easy removal for cleaning & reinstallation of tree sponge.


Yellow Ball
https://www.live-plants.com/yellowball.htm
These are probably are the hardiest of the Gulf of Mexico sponges. I recently recovered a “yellow ball” that was a maroon bump in a sea of burgundy. Yes, Cynobacteria mat had engulfed “ball sponges”. When I peeled back the cyno, the yellow was BRIGHT and the sponge feeding port were open & functioning under the “cyno mat”. Albeit, the sponge was 25% smaller for the “acid wash”.

March 4, 2019
Reference post #18. Due to low salinity Sponge was self destructing exposing a comple new sponge.

PS: I will edit & update this first post on occasion.

 

[Subsea]

While we are at it, let’s bring in Mardi Gras Sponges and Outdoor Sponges

 

[SDK]

Great information and pictures!

 

[Subsea]

Great information and pictures!

I noticed reef diver in your signature. Where? Please share pictures or stories.

There are quite a few divers on this hobby website: @Paul B @Lasse @Scrubber_steve

I am all about havig fun with this thread. Please join in and “make it so”.
A Cajun Aggie in Austin, Tx

 

[SDK]

I've been out of the game for a few years since having kids, but will try and dig up some pics over the weekend. We unfortunately stopped just before the digital photo revolution. Most of my pictures are actual paper photos, or scattered on thumb drives and an old photobucket account.

My wife and I were hard core divers dating back to 1997 and have logged over 2,000 dives in the following areas:

All over the northeast USA doing shore, wreck and boat/shark dives.
All over the Caribbean
Gulf of Mexico, Keys, and Atlantic side of Florida
We also went through DIR training and did many of the caverns and springs in Florida
South China Sea
Pacific Northwest when we lived in Oregon for a couple of years

When the kids get a bit older, our bucket list dives are Australia and western pacific. That is the one region we never got to.

 

[PookieGV]

Love these sponges. Do you actively feed them?

 

[Subsea]

Love these sponges. Do you actively feed them?

Indirectly. I feed the system heavily every day: flake, frozen, freeze dried and live mussels. Bacteria acting on protein produce amino acids. Live gut cavity from salt water mussels feed sponges and sea apples along with deep water gorgonians that are NPS. All of these filter feeders, including coral, feed on bacteria. By being skimmerless, I allow bacteria to move nutrients from one trophic level to another in the food chain.

 

[User1]

Dive the colder waters of Northern Ca - best diving in the world. Monterey and our deep channels with kelp forests. Surreal at 110 feed looking up as you make your way through. Point Lobos is always great. Monastery beach, when dive-able, is probably one of the world top 10 sites but also aptly named. Beach dive is by far one of the most challenging I've every been on just due to entry and exit.

Must bring cold water gear of course because your warm bath water stuff will freeze 40 - 54 Fahrenheit on a good day I do not dive dry suit but do double up with 7mm body, 3mm chest heater, 5mm gloves.

Edit: Always enjoy the warm water dives I get to do here and there.

 

[Subsea]

Dive the colder waters of Northern Ca - best diving in the world. Monterey and our deep channels with kelp forests. Surreal at 110 feed looking up as you make your way through. Point Lobos is always great. Monastery beach, when dive-able, is probably one of the world top 10 sites but also aptly named. Beach dive is by far one of the most challenging I've every been on just due to entry and exit.

Must bring cold water gear of course because your warm bath water stuff will freeze 40 - 54 Fahrenheit on a good day I do not dive dry suit but do double up with 7mm body, 3mm chest heater, 5mm gloves.

Edit: Always enjoy the warm water dives I get to do here and there.

I think the Monterey Bay Aquarium is in the top 5 in the world, if not the #1. As you pointed out, the cold nutrient rich waters from the Sea of Japan grow much to feed the ocean. Is it October that has the best diving? I visited San Francisco for Thanksgiving and drove down to visit the Aquarium. It was impressive to say the least. To creat tidal surge, a 30’ diameter piston traveled up & down 10’. This was
> 15 years ago. I thought I had seen the best. For me the circular jellyfish display in alternating red, blue & green colors was awesome shining thru translucent jelly fish. Who spiked the kool aid?

 

[lapin]

Dive the colder waters of Northern Ca - best diving in the world. Monterey and our deep channels with kelp forests...........
Must bring cold water gear of course because your warm bath water stuff will freeze 40 - 54 Fahrenheit on a good day I do not dive dry suit but do double up with 7mm body, 3mm chest heater, 5mm gloves.

And you will still freeze to death. Nothing like the cold Alaskan current.

 

[Subsea]

Dive the colder waters of Northern Ca - best diving in the world. Monterey and our deep channels with kelp forests. Surreal at 110 feed looking up as you make your way through. Point Lobos is always great. Monastery beach, when dive-able, is probably one of the world top 10 sites but also aptly named. Beach dive is by far one of the most challenging I've every been on just due to entry and exit.

Must bring cold water gear of course because your warm bath water stuff will freeze 40 - 54 Fahrenheit on a good day I do not dive dry suit but do double up with 7mm body, 3mm chest heater, 5mm gloves.

Edit: Always enjoy the warm water dives I get to do here and there.

Have you dove GOM west of Tampa Bay?

 

[User1]

And you will still freeze to death. Nothing like the cold Alaskan current.

That is true. A lot of the divers there use dry suits. I've thought about it but at the end of the day it is one more piece of equipment and thing to check, right? There are not as many active boats these days but when I used to go on the Cypress Sea the first two dives are sound. It wasn't until the third dive that I was reluctant Now days we make a day trip out of it and hit the beaches or schedule a day at Point lobos. Two dives, lunch, walk around a bit then finish with a nice dinner before the 3 - 4 hour drive home.

And ironically the better time to dive is in the winter with some of the best visibility. Cold though you are correct. That first giant leap is a wake up call Beaches, well, it is easier unless the local dolphin family is picking the beach you are entering for their dining area. They have a way of ruining your visibility and then you are swimming out a ways.

 

[User1]

Have you dove GOM west of Tampa Bay?

Believe it or not, I've not made a dive in Florida Hawaii, Okinawa, Costa Mya, Bahamas, Cozumel, etc. Sad, huh?

 

[User1]

I think the Monterey Bay Aquarium is in the top 5 in the world, if not the #1. As you pointed out, the cold nutrient rich waters from the Sea of Japan grow much to feed the ocean. Is it October that has the best diving? I visited San Francisco for Thanksgiving and drove down to visit the Aquarium. It was impressive to say the least. To creat tidal surge, a 30’ diameter piston traveled up & down 10’. This was
> 15 years ago. I thought I had seen the best. For me the circular jellyfish display in alternating red, blue & green colors was awesome shining thru translucent jelly fish. Who spiked the kool aid?

It is a nice aquarium for sure. They have some good donors to keep it going and there is a lot of history around the area. Regardless of what political spectrum you are on Monterey is a great example of commercial fishing and zero regulations and the effect it has on the environment.

Speaking of Japan when I was stationed in Okinawa my wife and I would always head up North to visit the aquarium there. I think they were the first to have a whale share. It was a really nice aquarium.

 

[Hermie]

I was reading a scientific paper about FL sponges yesterday, and learned that one thing sponges really don't like is low salinity, anything below 1.022 SG or so can kill them with optimal at 35ppm (1.026). I realized this after doing a water change inadvertently with low salinity and one of my sponges is now reacting poorly.

 

[Subsea]

Believe it or not, I've not made a dive in Florida Hawaii, Okinawa, Costa Mya, Bahamas, Cozumel, etc. Sad, huh?

You have dove in a lot of places throughout the world! What branch of the military service? When? I served 4 years in the Air Force: Nov 1966 - Nov 1070.

I have never SCUBA dove except in a swimming pool. We had to practice survival rescue from a sunken vessel in 15’ of water, when I worked in the North Sea where the water teperature was in the mid 30’s. Two men wore survival suits and rode a rail track into a 30’ deep pool inside a glass bubble that simulated a LOH heicoter. Trainning happened during the summertime requiring a 20 ton refrigeration unit to chill water to 35 degrees. The simulator was designed for the RAF. No pansies in that group.

As a child of 10 years old, I went offshore fishing in GOM during the summers almost every week. My father was president of Bank 1 and their were VP’s available to cover the job. We went out > 100 miles from Intracoastal City which was 50 miles due South of Lafayette to get into “Blue Water” where the Red Snapper & Grouper were. Once we brought out recreational SCUBA divers. Thick blue jeans was all the protection worn by the divers. On the second dive of the day, the head diver came up bloody from chin to toe. The rigs construction underwater consisted of 5’ diameter pipe encrusted with barnacles. All divers carried a spear gun with a tethered line that allowed divers to retrieve spear & fish. For large gr0uper at > 75 pounds, the divers used a ballon to float fish up to the surface. However, divers hand got snagged on end of retrieval line and 100 pound Jew Fish dragged him across pilings & barnacles. Thirty minutes later 120 pound grouper floated to the surface.

 

[User1]

Would have been 85 - 89. Air Force. Then switched to reserves for a year then air national guard after that for 26 years. Me and a friend are the only two out of that years basic training that received an over seas long tour single and our field training at home station. Really odd but I guess maybe a manning shortage because we couldn't swap duty stations or nothing. Looking back I loved Okinawa but at 19 vs today, well, you see things differently. I'm glad we lived off base the whole time and away from other military members. So lots of good memories with the locals.

I've heard some of those fish such as the Jew and Groupers can be rather large. I know Richard at TBS was telling me some stories of the fish in his area. I've attempted spear fishing back in Okinawa but was never good at it. My brother in law dives for abalone but the area they go in Ca has a really nasty land lord (local great white). Looking back on life it would have been fun to work on or around the ocean of some sort. Not sure who I ended up in IT - Lord knows I'm not thrilled with my current company after the split but I find other ways to relax now via the reef in my house or putzing around in the garage outside.

 

[Hermie]

interesting thing happened to my yellow sponge... so a few weeks ago it closed up and started "dying" causing bubbles to form inside and thus make the organism float. I decided this was probably a last-ditch defense mechanism if it finds itself in unsuitable water and sacrifices itself to float away to somewhere better. Well, I cut it in half to remove some air and stop it from floating and then let it be in the tank looking like mush on a rock. Turns out, a whole new "tiny" version of the sponge was taking shape where I couldn't see it. Now I have a "mini-me" yellow ball sponge about 3/4" in size and looking good. Happy that I did not throw the whole thing out thinking it was totally "Dead."

this is the little guy:

 

[Subsea]

interesting thing happened to my yellow sponge... so a few weeks ago it closed up and started "dying" causing bubbles to form inside and thus make the organism float. I decided this was probably a last-ditch defense mechanism if it finds itself in unsuitable water and sacrifices itself to float away to somewhere better. Well, I cut it in half to remove some air and stop it from floating and then let it be in the tank looking like mush on a rock. Turns out, a whole new "tiny" version of the sponge was taking shape where I couldn't see it. Now I have a "mini-me" yellow ball sponge about 3/4" in size and looking good. Happy that I did not throw the whole thing out thinking it was totally "Dead."

this is the little guy:

Neat. I will edit & add that comment to original post.

 

[lapin]

While we are at it, let’s bring in Mardi Gras Sponges and Outdoor Sponges

You gonna heat that tank tonight?