find sponge in minecraft

How Do You Get Sponges in Minecraft?

Whatever your level this question may arise, for some you have a little idea, for others you start from scratch. Today I will try to give you as much information as possible to find sponges on Minecraft.

On Minecraft, sponges are found in ocean monuments at the bottom of the oceans.
Each monument has a sponge room, placed differently in each monument.

In this article I will make a reminder about sponges, then we will see how to find ocean monuments, and finally, where the sponge rooms are.
I will also give you another way to get sponges.

The sponges in Minecraft

In this first part, I will start with a reminder about sponges in general, how to get them and what they are used for.

Ways to get sponges

To get sponges, there are two methods.
But in both cases you will have to find an ocean monument, we will come back to it later.

The first method is to find the sponge rooms in monuments.
There can contain one or more rooms depending on the case.
In each room you will find about 30 sponges.

A second way is to kill the elder guardians, who will give you a sponge when you kill them.

Dry and wet sponges

Sponges come with two different variants: dry or wet.
The sponges can be baked in an oven to dry.

Only dry sponges can remove water.

Using sponges

Sponges make a 5x5x5 water area disappear.

Simply put your dry sponge where it is intended.
The surrounding water will disappear, and the sponge will now be wet.

This is very useful for example when exploring ocean monuments, in order to be able to breathe at several points.
And if you empty the water of the entire temple you will not be too bothered by the guardians.

Everything you need to know about ocean monuments

Ocean monuments (or temples) are already existing buildings in Minecraft (a bit like desert temples).

Introducing ocean monuments

You will find ocean monuments in the deep oceans.
They are generated close to the center of the biome and are usually laid on the ground or not very far, they are never buried.

From 1.13, the monuments are a little more discreet, but still easy to see.
You won’t usually miss an ocean monument if you pass nearby, it is much bigger than a desert temple and is surrounded by guardians.

An ocean monument is a maze in which you will find a main entrance then corridors, rooms, a treasure room and sponge rooms (we’ll come back to this later).

Each ocean monument is different, so it is not possible to give you a plan of attack, and that each monument is explored in the same place (unlike a desert temple).

Content of ocean monument

Once you have found an ocean monument, you will have access to a bunch of blocks available only in temples:

  • Prismarine (normal, dark or cut)
  • Aquatic lantern (sea lantern)
  • Sponges (the ultimate goal of this article)
  • And 8 blocks of gold

These monuments are also populated by two special mobs that can only be found near an ocean monument: the guardians and elder guardians.
The guardians are the fish you will find all around and inside the building.
The elder guardians are the 3 “bosses” that you will have to kill to avoid having the fatigue effect and get 3 sponges as a bonus.

A room with a former guard

Finally the ocean monuments also allow you to unlock two successes, I let you discover them.

Find ocean monuments

There is not really a miracle technique to find the ocean monuments.
If you are lucky to be close to a village, look if by chance there would not be a cartographer villager (white costume).
Against a few emeralds, it will give you an exploration map that can indicate the location of an ocean monument.

Otherwise, the best method is to explore the oceans by boat searching for a deep point that could accommodate a temple.
These may take some time, be patient.

I managed to find two in less than an hour by writing this article, so it’s still reasonable 🙂

Find the sponge rooms

Finally, I offer you a summary of the information to know to find the sponge rooms once the ocean monument is found.

Theory

How often in Minecraft, there is theory and practice.
In reading the wiki you will say to yourself: “Great, it’s easy!”
And then once there nothing will go as planned, you will die 10 times or find nothing that fits the description 🙂

In short, the theory tells us that the central section of the ocean monuments is composed of an arrangement only of rooms and that each temple is different.
Some monuments can contain from one to several sponge rooms, and others do not have any at all.

Now let’s see what happens in practice 🙂

Surviving in an ocean monument

In practice, the first problem is going to be not to die 50 times while exploring the temple.
Whether by drowning or by mobs, death quickly occurs.

Don’t drown

To avoid drowning, the best solution I’ve found is to take a few torches in your action bar.
By placing them against a wall this will give you the ability to breathe and raise your oxygen bar.
This goes down very quickly, think about always having an eye on them.

You can also consider aquatic breathing potions, but their effect will disappear with each bucket of milk you drink (see next paragraph).

Don’t die

Then you’re going to have to fight two types of problems with mobs:

  • The damage: as with any mob, you’ll take damage. But given the number of guards in the ocean monument, it can go very fast. Consider planning golden apples or regeneration potions to find life if necessary.
  • The effect of fatigue: the ancient guardians will give you an effect of fatigue as soon as you enter the temple. This effect being rather long (5min?), it will completely prevent you from doing anything. Plan buckets of milk to make it pass the time to break blocks.

Ideal inventory

I don’t know if it’s the ideal inventory, but it’s certainly the one I’m trying to get before I venture into an ocean monument:

  • A top armor: diamond and ideally enchanted with Protection 4. Aquatic enchantments can be a plus (apnea, affinity, agility)
  • A good sword: the ancient guards are not so easy to kill, so plan a correct sword (Tranchant V ideally)
  • Sponges: if you already have sponges, don’t hesitate to take them, this can be a great help for the exploration of the ocean monument.
  • Milk buckets: plan a few buckets of milk to remove the fatigue given by the former guardians while killing them
  • Potions: don’t hesitate to stock up on potions if possible. It will be very difficult to survive without. I think in particular of breathing, regeneration or care.
    Night vision can also be useful so as not to be too much dark during your temple visit
  • Golden apples: If you’re lucky enough to have found golden apples in your other explorations, this is one of the times you can spend them.

If you have any other stuff ideas to add, tell me in the comment, I’ll add later.

Attack plan

Once you’ve prepared all this, it’s time to take action.

At the beginning I advise you to enter from the top of the ocean monument.
In breaking a block on the ceiling of the monument in the center, you will find the first former guardian.
Once it is eliminated, move very quickly to find and eliminate the other two.

Once the bosses are eliminated, it will be much easier to move around and break the walls.
While your quick turn of the ocean monument, note important places like the treasure room or sponge rooms that you may have come across.

Find the rooms

I don’t know if one can make a generality, but in the monuments I looked at for writing this article, the layout was always as follow:

  • Top floor: First boss to kill
  • Ground floor: Treasure room
  • Between these two floors: Sponge rooms

So I advise you to:

  • Come out of the temple once the 3 former guards are killed
  • Go back from the top again
  • Descend a level from the boss’s room (usually there is a hole in the middle, if not dig in the center)
  • Break a block in each direction in the room where you are and see if there are rooms accessible directly
  • Failing that, completely break this floor to make sure you don’t miss anything (some sponge rooms have no direct access, you have to break a wall)
  • You can also break the ceiling of the ocean monument (the roof of the temple wings)

Here are the steps in pictures, this will probably be clearer.

The original ocean monument
Return from the top (4 sea lanterns) once the bosses killed

Discover the first floor below the boss’s room
The first sponge rooms are here

The ocean monument once all the steps completed
The first two rooms were accessible by breaking the blocks of the wall in the room below
the boss.
The other was visible by breaking the ceiling of the outline of the building.

Obviously if your current equipment doesn’t break all the ceilings quickly, you can just break a few blocks here and there.
The rooms go about 8×8 so breaking a block every 4/5 blocks should suffice.

I hope that these cutting images will have been useful to understand everything, if you still have doubts do not hesitate to ask the question in the comments.

Related question

Once the ocean monument emptied of its sponge rooms and treasure room, are there other interesting things to recover? Not really, you can eventually turn it into a fish plant by removing all the water and leaving only a layer to the surface, but this is rarely useful off server.

Conclusion

There you go, you now know everything there is to know about sponge hunting in Minecraft. Obviously, by exploring other temples you can increase your supply of sponges, which is interesting for big projects (it avoids drying them every time).
But most of the time one or two looted rooms are enough for a whole game , no need to set foot there again 🙂

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