Where can you buy these?
 

Where can you buy pipe organ or stove pipe sponges?

I love them but have never seen them for sale anywhere throughout my travels. Is this a special order item because it is NOT covered by any CITES convention that I can find.

Thanks in advance. :biggrin:

I thought J&L had a bunch of them in stock

for good reasons, they are nearly impossible to keep alive in an aquarium.

buy them, and watch them die...not fun.

I buy the artificial versions.

I checked J & L and they don't have the ones that I am referring to.

sponge
 

are you looking for finger or vase sponges

Like these.

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/l...m/Belize09.jpg

I'm not sure if sponges can properly be kept in captivity.

However; I saw a beautiful pipe organ at J&L on Sunday. I've been keeping one in my nano and it's a show stopper! The one they have is on a rock, top tank on the right of the coral price list, mid-tank, bottom rack - $40 I think.

I was going to buy it thinking it was something else.

Or these

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/l...2520sponge.jpg

I don't think those are available anywhere. They're probably protected locally, or they're just too large/delicate for collection and shipping. Or perhaps they're accepted as being currently impossible to maintain in captivity due to feeding requirements. Who knows... I'd suggest learning how to culture your own phytoplankton first and mastering regular coral keeping before moving up to difficult Azooxanthellate species.

However if you'd like to try your hand at keeping a small variation I could send you a handful of this one of these days.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...o/IMG_6907.jpg

I would completely agree with this. Even the more common sponges that you do tend to find at your LFS from time to time are ridiculously difficult to keep long term. Blue sponges, orange sponge balls, etc, you see those all the time at LFS. Sadly they don't tend to last long in captivity.