Best reef safe sand cleaners?
- Thread starter Kbra
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glamisracers
unregistered
diamond goby i love mine keeps my sand very clean but hate some of the mountains he makes lol
Mike&Terry
Wrasses, Angels, & Tangs, Oh My!
fighting conchs and detritus eating sea cucumbers.
seamonkey84
Active Member
How big is the tank and how deep is your sand?
IMHO the best sand cleaners are usually the hitchhikers from your LR like bristle worms, spahgetti worms, micro brittle stars ( love these guys), and amphipods. For some larger critters of course nassarius (n. tonga if you want larger ones) snails, FL fighting conch, serpent star, and maybe a sea cucumber if your aware of the possible issues and are prepared for it.
IMHO the best sand cleaners are usually the hitchhikers from your LR like bristle worms, spahgetti worms, micro brittle stars ( love these guys), and amphipods. For some larger critters of course nassarius (n. tonga if you want larger ones) snails, FL fighting conch, serpent star, and maybe a sea cucumber if your aware of the possible issues and are prepared for it.
Pkunk35
Valuable Member
I think a lot of sand sifting creatures come with their disadvantages...hard to pick a true sand sifter that would be worry free. Do you need to just turn the sand over to look nice or to actually clean and eat particles/debris from it?
Sea cucumbers are probably the best at sifting/cleaning/moving sand tho IMO. Personally tho i am leary of having cucumbers in the tank.
Sea cucumbers are probably the best at sifting/cleaning/moving sand tho IMO. Personally tho i am leary of having cucumbers in the tank.
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Kbra
Valuable Member
Stars don't eat the algae on the sand.
Troylee
all about the diy!!!!!
Nazuris snails "spelling" there awesome and worry free... Put like a 100 in there they will keep it clean... Just prepare for a earth quake when you drop food in the tank haha... Nah they hide in the sand and the second food touches the water they come from every where..
Trex
Valuable Member
Hence my post, they will eat all the microscopic life in the sandbed, stripping it of all that life.
dirtycontour
Active Member
+1, most sand sifters will eat the microfauna that keeps the SB healthy.
seamonkey84
Active Member
I never recomend sand sifting stars, they eat the benefitial critters that live in the sand that actually take care of detritus. Fighting conch stay a manageable size and held do some deeper sand stiring, I have not come across many negative reports other than the persons tank was too small to support them. Cucumbers are great at what they do, but risky if it gets harrassed or is not healthy.
Personaly, I think an army of nassarius snails are a riot to watch, as the zombies rise out of the ground stumbling towards food. For you tank I'd get the tonga variety, prob 50 or so of these will do nicely to stir sand and keep detritus down.
stay away from horse shoe crabs, no matter what the guy at a lfs says (though I work at one lol)
Personaly, I think an army of nassarius snails are a riot to watch, as the zombies rise out of the ground stumbling towards food. For you tank I'd get the tonga variety, prob 50 or so of these will do nicely to stir sand and keep detritus down.
stay away from horse shoe crabs, no matter what the guy at a lfs says (though I work at one lol)
Mike&Terry
Wrasses, Angels, & Tangs, Oh My!
We have a large number of jumbo and small nassarius snails in our 300g reef and they are great, but do nowhere near the cleanup job of our large FL fighting conchs and sea cucumbers. Detritus eating sea cucumbers are workhorses and the only cleaners we've had that will devour cyano and dinoflagellates, as well as detritus and algae. Here's a pic of one of our cucumbers that has been with us for 8 or 9 years:
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A sand sifting star for a system that big for sure. Sand sifting starts require large tanks or they starve and yours is large is sounds like. They will also go right to the bottom and keep it clean so are good for shallow sand beds and not so good if you do not want the bottom layer disturbed.
Conches just eat algae off the sand so if algae is the problem, they do not eat detritus. They do not keep the sand stired up either, yea they bury themselves in the sand but do very little to stirr up the sand.
A cucumber or two would work fine to help out but only use the top layer.
Nassarius snails do very little for a sand bed, they are very good scavengers though. They do bury themselves in the sand bed but that does very little and they eat no detritus. There are also differnet ones available and one species does not live long.
So what are you looking for? algae, detritus, stirrer, top layer all layers?
You may need one thing or a combo.
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Kbra
Valuable Member
Great colors and huge cucumber. The water volume of our tanks should be safe to handle a new one dieing right?
jedimasterben
Bubble coral sting good
Uhh, duh? Nassarius snails do not eat any type of algae, they eat meaty food only.
I'd highly recommend several hawkwing conchs for a 400g. They have prettier shells than fighting conchs, get the same size (about 4" or so), stir the top inch of sand very well, and devour algae like mad.
