Purple sponge problems

[Apostle]

I bought a purple sponge 2 days ago and it's now looking in really bad shape. It's barely purple anymore, in fact it's pretty transparent. It did come into contact with air when at the lfs. The numpty that works there didn't put enough water in the bag and I could see one end sticking out. Can't take it back though because just as I was about to say something my dad decided to mess around with the bag whilst it was on the counter exposing it to air even more, so the lfs would think it was his mistake.

It's in a shaded area of my tank with a good flow, i've got 40x turnover. All my params are fine.

What are the chances of survival? Is it already dead? Should I just take it out now before it starts to rot?

Thanks

[greenbean36191]

It sounds like it's already dying. You can try to cut off the discolored parts and hope there is healthy tissue underneath that is salvagable.

[Apostle]

I think i'll have to bin it then and the coloured bits are tiny. like little purple veins.

cheers

[frederickk]

As soon as they touched air they are mostly done. But like greenbean said try cutting the discolored part and see if it come back.

[Apostle]

OK, so here's a question about how the lfs should pakage a sponge to stop it coming into contact with the air. My lfs just put it in a bag half full of water barely covering the sponge. There is no possible way of getting that home without water movement exposing the sponge, so it's a gonna whatever happens.

Surely a better idea would be a plastic tub that could be submerged, the sponge placed inside and then the lid put on whilst still underwater. This would eliminate any air. Plus it would make drip acclimatisation really easy as this tub could be placed straight in a bucket to overflow into. Simple.

Annoyed with myself for buying it as alarm bells were ringing whilst I was in the sop. The guy at my lfs loves to go on about how he has 22 years experience in the trade. I've one years experience and i'm sure I know more!

When I first set up my tank he told me I didn't need a protein skimmer. Sure you can run a tank without but this is the single most important piece of equipment for a newbie.

He also told me that about 12-14 ish would be fine for my 60 gallon.

Thank god for the internet and this forum for the wealth of info available. Otherwise i'd have 12 fish in a 60 wondering why everthing was going wrong.

I decided to test the guys stupidity the other week and asked him if the baby regal tank he had would be ok in my tank. he said it would be fine as my tank was huge and besides, the fish would grow according to the tank size.

[greenbean36191]

Personally, I wouldn't buy a sponge from the LFS regardless of how it was packed for a few reasons. You really have no way of knowing how it was treated between the ocean and the store. Somewhere along the line it was probably exposed to air.

Another big problem is that there is really no way for a hobbyist to know the care requirements for them. People will usually tell you low light, high flow, don't espose it to air, and maybe feed it phytoplankton. That completely ignores the huge diversity of sponges. Different species are adapted to different lighting and flow regimes and will do poorly if given the wrong ones. Some need flow we can't give them, so are almost guaranteed death in the hobby. Different species also feed on different things and many have no problem being exposed to air.