Per Kat (georgeashington), grid it out with sand and then sponge if you are trying to make a farm outta it. Even doing it that way, you're gonna need a lot of sand/gravel.
I need to play with this more but the only way I could get sponge to work effectively is if I created 3-4 block high levels that I then made grids with that were like 15x15 or so. I'm sure there's a better way but I had to find a way to keep the water from re-filling after I used the sponge.
3 wide rows of water, depth does not matter. From surface, go down 3 blocks, place sponge. Then place 2 other block and sponge. Repeat. Water Gone. Once we had the rows done up with sand walls, water removal took minutes.
No matter which way you do it, it's going to take a while to accomplish this farm lol. Also, something Khixan and I should have done from the start (her idea of course) is to spawn other animals in the area to get the entity count up. I can't tell you how many times Khixan and I have been knocked off the wall by guardians or the enraged skeletons spawning constantly. Like Khixan said though, the most efficient way we've been clearing the water out is to grid the entire area with walls of sand then go in and clear out the water with sponge. If anyone has a more efficient method I'd be happy to know what it is lol.
No. 3 wide from left to right, the depth doesn't matter because once you do the first row, you go further down and do another row until water is gone. Like once we had the sand walls up, there were water pockets 3 wide and maybe 15-20 deep. It took me less then 2 mins to remove all that water from each pocket.
I just want to say to any new players, or players who haven't found an underwater temple but want to... they are still out there. You may think all of them have been found but they haven't. Keep looking.
