It will be pretty tricky to find Sponges in Minecraft, as they only spawn deep underwater. Ironically, these yellow blocks can be great for making paths around aquatic areas. There are 2 variations of Sponges, but only 1 will be useful.
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Can You Make a Sponge in Minecraft?
You cannot make a Sponge in Minecraft, as there is no crafting recipe for it. This is one of those blocks that you will have to find, like a Saddle or a Name Tag. However, Sponges are not located in Dungeons or other land-based structures. For these yellow cubes, you will need to head out to sea.
Where to Find Sponges
The only place where you’ll find Sponges is an Ocean Monument. These rare structures only spawn underwater and in Deep Ocean biomes. As such, to get some Sponges, you’ll need to come up with some way to travel to and from this underwater location. Ocean Monuments will have a room full of Sponges for you to harvest, among other treasures.
How to Find Ocean Monuments
You can find Ocean Monuments when exploring Ocean biomes while sailing around in a Boat. It’s possible for you to spot them glowing from beneath the waves, as bright Sea Lanterns will generate as part of an Ocean Monument. However, as mentioned before, since these are rare structures, it will probably take you a while to find an Ocean Monument this way.
Although, if you want a quicker yet more expensive way to find an Ocean Monument, you can trade with some Villagers. You can potentially buy Ocean Explorer Maps from Cartographer Villagers at the cost of a few Emeralds. Ocean Explorer Maps have a regular map icon, but with blue lines on it. Such maps will have the location of 1 Ocean Monument displayed (the nearest one).
Getting Sponges as Mob Loot
Sponges can also drop as items from certain defeated mobs, however, the kind that drops them only spawns in Ocean Monuments. You are guaranteed to get 1 Sponge when you slay an Elder Guardian. This battle isn’t really worth the effort as there are likely many easier Sponges to harvest elsewhere in the same structure.
What You Can Use a Sponge For
The primary use for Sponges in Minecraft is to soak up water. This can be useful for navigating watery terrain—especially for making easy routes to Ocean Monuments. However, you will need to make sure that a Sponge is dry before you use it to soak up water, otherwise, it will do nothing.
How Much Water Sponges Soak up
When a Sponge is placed in water, it will absorb all water up to 7 blocks away from its placed location. This means that all 6 directions around a Sponge will be cleared of water almost instantly. This allows you to create an octahedron (looks like an 8-sided die) air pocket in any body of water. However, keep in mind that there is a limit to how much water a Sponge can soak up. To be exact, every 1 Sponge can absorb up to 135 blocks of water total before it becomes oversaturated.
You should also keep in mind that water can flow through a space created by a Sponge. For example, if you place a dry Sponge at the bottom of an Ocean biome, it will soak up water in its usual range, however, water from above will flow down to refill that air pocket with water. As such, if you’re planning to make a path leading to an underwater location, you’ll have to start from the surface and soak up the water as you travel downward.
How to Dry a Sponge
Since wet Sponges cannot absorb water, you will need to dry them out before being able to use them again. This can be done in a couple of ways. Firstly, you can ‘cook’ a wet Sponge in a Furnace to dry it out. This process works the same as if you were making food in that you put the wet Sponge on the top slot of a Furnace and then some fuel on the bottom slot. The dried Sponge will appear on the right slot after the white progress arrow has filled up.
Although, if you want a way to dry Sponges without using resources for fuel, you can instantly dry out a Sponge in the Nether. Any wet Sponged placed in the Nether will immediately dry out, however, this means that you will need a Nether Portal.
Furthermore, there is a way that you can dry Sponges that is exclusive to the Bedrock Edition of the game. If you place a wet Sponge in a dry biome (a Desert, Savannah, or Plains biome), it will dry out by itself after a few minutes.
