Spawn & destroy is probably not a good idea, as it uses memory AND CPU in the end.
If memory is an issue read about this blog article and make sure you're not overdoing it.
Also, you talk about 72 different objects, but in the end you could have 12 different sprites containing each 6 different animations. This maybe won't have impact on the memory usage, but at least it sounds like a better programming practice.
Posting your capx would probably be the best way to telling you definitely what's going wrong.
But I suspect 72 frames causing memory issues just means you are using too big textures as explained in the blog article.