# Sponge as Substrate / Background?



## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

HI Everyone,

Has anyone ever used aquarium sponges as background as substrate and / or background? It would be for a 10 gallon tank, so not too expensive if i do one or the other. The 10 gallon tank will be for Aquaponics purposes, and will have snails, shrimps, and maybe later some fish or crayfish (or not). I dont like bare bottoms, and didnt feel like putting sand in it as it may get into the pump and rest of the line, and that would be a mess. So i thought of having a black sponge at bottom of tank, or on the back (or both), to also give the shrimps / snails more bacteria to munch on. Also, it seems simpler to clean if i ever need to, and usually i think my snails lay eggs in the sponges i have in my other aquarium. Anyways, anyone ever do or seen this?

I may also put some driftwood in there with moss later on, so that might be harder to do with sponge than gravel....


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## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

I've never done this, but it sounds like it may work out to me. The gaps in the sponge would be great shelter for your shrimps, the only issue it eventually it will become saturated with poop so you'd need to clean it out. 

And at that point, you may wash away and shrimp-lings you had inside the sponge without realizing.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

Thanks for the reply and throwing some thoughts to think about. Now, unless I am missing something, wouldnt all my alternative yield the same result though? Say it was bare-bottom, wouldnt i still need to vacuum clearn the bottom, and thus risk little shrimp-ling and snail-lings? If i had gravel, the poop would get berried bellow, sure, but the bad bacteria woudl gather eventually too, and vacuum cleaning would be required. However, maybe the reasoning is the shrimplets would get vacuumed in another bucket, giving me the chance to save them. If that is the case, when cleaning the sponge, i could do it in a bucket with tank water, and try to recup somehow the babies, as much as possible anyways. Anyways, just throwing some thoughts out.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Using a sponge on the bottom and back should work out well. There are sponge filters that fill the whole back of the tank. But if you wanted to DIY, I would make the back sponge be a sponge filter somehow. You could just try to use a HOB filter and have the intake behind the sponge, wouldn't need to put any media in the filter, just use it as a pump.

Now if you want a really cool idea instead of using sponge, make a moss wall/floor. I bought a small amount of taiwan moss a while ago and I've slowly been growing it out to be a moss wall. If you are interested, I can give you details on the technique that is working well for me.

as for sponge wall/floor, that should work, but you have to make sure it is snug or critters will go behind it


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

I don't get it. What's the advantage of a sponge substrate? Easier cleaning? But since this tank is for aquaponics, why would you ever *want* to clean the substrate?

I say save yourself the hassle and just go with regular gravel.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

Hey Pyrollin,

Thanks. I would like to hear how you make the moss wall / floor. I did manage to finaly make a sponge type wall for my 10g shrimp tank, using as the backwall a white canvas, then followed by a rubber grid for pets as to give the black background, then sow using fishing line the moss. For the moss, i used Weeping Moss on the middle to about 2/3 the way, and then java moss for the two end side about 1/3 of the wall for areas that would not get as much light. I use magnets to hold the wall to the back. Now, some weeks/months after, when i look from the top of the tank, it looks good, but when i look from the front, there are some brown areas where the moss has burnt a bit, and not completely full, and some area which didnt get much light disapeared on the fartest sides. The wall took me weeks to build once i was able to gather all the moss from fellow members (took me weeks to gather enough moss). All in all, i am still happy, because it gives the shrimps nice hidding area and to walk on the backwall. Once i setup my Eheim 2213, i will have the outflow on the wall, and try to back out things a bit for the light to have better chance at hitting the wall, and hopefully things will improve.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

solarz said:


> I don't get it. What's the advantage of a sponge substrate? Easier cleaning? But since this tank is for aquaponics, why would you ever *want* to clean the substrate?
> 
> I say save yourself the hassle and just go with regular gravel.


Hey Solarz, i dont like the look of a bare floor glass, so i need something. I like the color black, so i want something preferably black if possible, otherwise yea, river rocks or something. Sand is not an option here, cause too likely to get into my pump and into the line. As for regular gravel, wouldnt i need to vacuum it every so often?

While on the subject of gravel, where can i get some for cheap, say a black color one, or as i guess that's probably only at petshops, then the small natural river rocks?


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

zfarsh said:


> Hey Solarz, i dont like the look of a bare floor glass, so i need something. I like the color black, so i want something preferably black if possible, otherwise yea, river rocks or something. Sand is not an option here, cause too likely to get into my pump and into the line. As for regular gravel, wouldnt i need to vacuum it every so often?
> 
> While on the subject of gravel, where can i get some for cheap, say a black color one, or as i guess that's probably only at petshops, then the small natural river rocks?


Why would you need to vacuum your gravel? It's completely unnecessary for planted tanks. The same principle applies for a hydroponic tank.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

there would not be too much plant in the aquarium itself, exept maybe some java moss and java fern. I have a grow bed on top where the veggies will be at.

ie, no rooted plants in the aquarium to eat the poop. Thus food and poop may eventually create anarobic bacteria inside in the gravel.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

zfarsh said:


> there would not be too much plant in the aquarium itself, exept maybe some java moss and java fern. I have a grow bed on top where the veggies will be at.
> 
> ie, no rooted plants in the aquarium to eat the poop. Thus food and poop may eventually create anarobic bacteria inside in the gravel.


If you're worried about that, just add a few low light rooted plants then. However, I seriously doubt it will ever be an issue.

On the other hand, sponges would get clogged much, much more quickly, so you'd have to clean it regularly.

Wait... isn't java fern a rooted plant?


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## SmokeSR (Jan 28, 2009)

You mentioned having snails in this tank. If you have some MTS, you could use regular gravel and the MTS will sift through it. They would not do this with a sponge and I can see the sponge getting clogged.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

i can put MTS in there. But i thought MTS were good for stirring sand? Wouldnt the gravel be too big or heavy for them? I have never had gravel before, always sand, so i dont have any experience with it, will the MTS be able to go between the little rocks (gravel), or do the gravel have to be small, some details would be appreciated. Also, where can i get gravel for not too expensive for the 10 gallon tank?


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## SmokeSR (Jan 28, 2009)

I've used MTS in regular aquarium gravel and they are able to burrow themselves.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

so no need to vacuum clean the gravel with MTS?


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## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

solarz said:


> Why would you need to vacuum your gravel? It's completely unnecessary for planted tanks. The same principle applies for a hydroponic tank.


Ummm fish crap, excess foods, and decaying matter tend to be mixed into the gravel. You should always clean your gravel bed once in a while, even in a planted aquarium as if not, you don't really clean your tank at all... More so just switch the old water with new water and don't remove the filth.

It'd be like cleaning the inside of of canister filter and simply adding the filthy, smelly, turtle crap soaked media back to it.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Sand as a substrate is not a problem at all if you do it right. you just have to rinse it very very well till there are no light particals left and your rinsing bucket is clear. Almost all my tanks have sand, I use playsand from homedepot.

My taiwan moss wall, I use that cross stiching grid stuff, black is what I use, I break up my taiwan moss into about 1 inch parts and I tie each part on individually using fishing line, I use a needle to guide the fishing line easier. put line into a loop hole in the grid, place a peice of moss, tie it on, trim extra line so you can't see it. For attaching it to the aquarium, I use suction cups, ones that have a little metal hook on them, I remove the hook. I cut out a small section of the grid, enough for the part of the suction cup part that held the hook. I do not like the sandwish method as it takes longer for the moss to grow through, the last section I worked on looked ok right away, just have to finish filling the whole thing when I have more time.

java fern is a rooted plant but not in the normal sense, it does best when attached to rocks or driftwood, basically the roots are exposed.

I still clean the surface of my sand with planted tanks, or would clean gravel in tanks with gravel, just not as often as with unplanted.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

honestly in my 75 gallon planted tank, with playsand, alot of plants, and MTS, i never clean the substrate, unless i am rescaping and have to move the driftwood and thus some of the residue is stured. Water change and filter cleaning is all i do every week or two. If i was under stocked, i would clean the filters much less., but i am not, so...


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Ryan.Wilton said:


> Ummm fish crap, excess foods, and decaying matter tend to be mixed into the gravel. You should always clean your gravel bed once in a while, even in a planted aquarium as if not, you don't really clean your tank at all... More so just switch the old water with new water and don't remove the filth.
> 
> It'd be like cleaning the inside of of canister filter and simply adding the filthy, smelly, turtle crap soaked media back to it.


Why would you want to "clean" your tank at all in a planted tank? As long as nitrates are under control from plant growth, there is no reason to worry about so-called "filth". What's filthy for you is food for the plants.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

if you have larger fish, you have larger poop which can look bad on sand, I hover over the sand and pick up the excess. In other tanks with smaller fish I rarely have to clean the bottom.

Really depends on the size of the fish waste and your substrate colour, sometimes you can see it and it looks bad, other times you can't see it so it doesn't matter.

and if you have gravel, cleaning the gravel goes along way in reducing nitrates if they are a problem.


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