Introduction: Sponging Up: Cleaning & Preserving Beachcombed Sponges

We went beach combing on Sand Primal Beach, on the Florida Westward Coast, recently, enjoying an unseasonably warm December 24-hour interval (at 80 degrees, warm even by Florida standards!). It was windy, making the commonly calm Gulf of Mexico a bit choppy, which didn't aid much with respect to shells, but did apparently stir up some sponge beds, making for a fun opportunity with the Gulf's leftovers!

Nosotros don't notice sea sponges very often, only on the few by occasions we accept, nosotros've had little luck cleaning them - ending upward with rather stinky, unusable brittle bits of organic matter that aren't very enjoyable to have effectually. This time, we thought nosotros'd practice a little more research on the subject to see if we could observe a improve style to make clean and preserve them.

Commercial sea sponge harvesting, which is big industry up the road in Tarpon Springs, involves bringing in fresh seas sponges and essentially letting them rot, by leaving them in the h2o or covered with wet burlap until all the organic cloth in them has died off. And then the sponges are beaten, squeezed and rubbed to remove the expressionless textile leaving only the sponge skeleton - the absorbent material nosotros use on cars and dishes.

The process takes a while and is intended for large scale commercial ventures. We just wanted to clean iv piddling sponges. So nosotros took a slightly unlike arroyo to achieve what we hoped would exist a similar end - clean and dry sea sponges we tin use for decorative or commonsensical purposes. We think it worked!

Natural sponges can be used for a variety of different things, and make lovely gifts, good textile for indoor gardening, and are useful for painting or cleaning,making these piffling beach finds a great repurposed treasure.

Step one: Materials Needed

You lot'll need

  • Some beach combed sea sponges
  • A container for h2o
  • Eventually a little laundry detergent
  • A drying rack

Do non use bleach, vinegar, or any other harsh cleaning agents on your sea sponges. They're pretty sturdy, but bleach will ruin them.

Nosotros take three different types of sponges here, loosely identified as a little basket sponge, tube sponges and maybe something more Gorgonian (coral) in nature, for which this process also seemed to work. (I used Florent'south Guide to the Florida, Bahamas and Caribbean Reefs to help ID our embankment finds, which makes for fascinating browsing!)

Pace 2: Rinse

Since we didn't harvest these fresh like commercial sponge fisherfolk exercise, we operated nether the supposition that these had tumbled about a bit in the Gulf before they washed ashore and had been expressionless for a least a few hours, if not longer. During our beach combing, yet, we avoided any sponges that already smelled bad - and rotting sponges smell very much like whatever rotting sea life. Sponges are living creatures until they're not, and if they prevarication around on a beach for a while, they don't smell very good.

Although the commercial practice is to allow them rot, the ones that were rotting on the beach were not covered in water, every bit they are commercially, so we felt it all-time to stick to sponges that were pretty fresh out of the water.

We wrapped our sponges in wet paper towels from the beach restroom, and put them in plastic bags to keep them wet. Once home, nosotros filled a plastic pitcher with tap h2o then squeezed the sponges repeatedly, agitating the water equally nosotros did so.

Stride 3: And Repeat

As you can run across, even piffling sponges concord a lot of material (hence, why they're so useful!) - after more 8 rinses, dumping cloudy water each time and refilling the bullpen, the sea sponges gradually released less sand and droppings.

Footstep iv: Soak Overnight

When the water was fairly clear, we permit the sponges soak overnight.

Step 5: Rinse Again

The next day, nosotros rinsed and squeezed the sponges several times over again, until the water was pretty clear.

Footstep vi: Dry Outside

Printing as much water every bit possible off your sponges so set up outside to dry for a mean solar day or two. We placed ours on an elevated grate so at that place was air circulation around the sponges, and covered them with a plastic bloom pot that nosotros weighted down with rock, since we have squirrels and wrens that take any interesting looking piece of material that might be remotely edible or useful in a nest.

Our sponges are pretty pocket-size and were completely dry the side by side day.

Step 7: Light Wash

Adapting recommendations from a sponge farming guide I establish, I gave our footling sponge(like) collection a light wash in fresh tap water with most a teaspoon of laundry detergent. I agitated the sponges lightly in the sudsy water. Fifty-fifty after all the previous rinsing, some additional material was still washed out of the sponges at this phase.

Step 8: Terminal Rinse

And then I rinsed thoroughly in clean tap h2o until the water was clear. By this time, all that handling had broken my larger, suspected soft coral, piece up a bit, but the sponges were fully intact.

Step 9: Dry Once again

This time, we set our beach combing treasures out to dry on a covered patio. By the finish of the 24-hour interval, they were dry once more, with only a faint high tide seaside aroma, which will probably fade a fleck more only never completely get abroad. If you lot've always seen dried seahorses or other similar seaside fare in shops, y'all'll be able to aroma that same scent in that location, likewise.

For our purposes though, the process was a keen success and we'll probably tweak a bit farther in the future. Adding baking soda would probably help further with odor reduction, as well every bit removing whatsoever other organic material notwithstanding in the sponges. The dainty thing virtually sponges is - they're sponges! You lot can moisture and rewet them as much as you'd like!

Step 10: Use & Savour!

You tin practise a lot of unlike things with natural sponges. The little basket sponge is perfect for indoor gardening, to display a minor air institute. The tube sponges can likewise be used for air plants, or the soft coral piece can be used as an accent piece on 3 dimensional art, for a customized frame or other brandish. You lot can too use denser pieces of sponge for painting.

Bask!

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