Am I overstocked? Detritus problem

[mark2103]

So let me give you some backstory. I have had my 45 gallon tank set up for about a year with a canister filter, and through the years I've had very small algae problems.
But my main problem is a bunch of uneaten detritus on my sand bed, I could take it out but it seems to always come back. I was thinking of getting a sand sifting star or a serpent star to take care of it.

Here's my stock that I've had for about a year
- 1 Coral Beauty
- 2 Ocellaris Clowns
- 2 Yellow Watchman Gobies (mated pair)
- 1 Neon Goby
- 3 Pajama Cardinals

Inverts wise:
- 6 hermits
- 1 emerald crab
- 1 Skunk Shrimp
- 1 Tiger Pistol Shrimp
- 1 Turbo Snail
- 2 Nassarius snails

 

[mta_morrow]

Your tank / sand bed is not large enough to support a sifting star long term. It will clean that size sand bed very quickly and the slowly starve. A single fighting conch may work, but still borderline for that size without supplemental feeding

 

[S2G]

What's your flow?

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

That doesn’t really sound overstocked. Could you be over feeding?

 

[lapin]

You really should feed less and vacuum the sand bed every week or 2.

 

[brandon429]

Stars make waste that are in whole form, adding to detritus. No animals consume it away, they all make whole pellet waste

has to be hand removed as stated or mechanically removed like when a goby kicks it up for a filter to catch or to be sifted