how does everyone keep their sand bed so white and clean?

[LetItReef]

The conch stirs the substrate up for me a lot.

+1 Tiger conch- a work horse!

 

[SantaMonicaHelp]

My golden head goby is amazing at cleaning the sand...
Unfortunately he is always throwing sand on my corals on the sand... they really dont seem to care much but it bothers me... I am in there all the time blowing the sand off with a baster but i swear in 30 seconds time of not looking there is sand right back on the same exact spot... its like hes telling me, stop un-doing my work!!!!
Im considering getting rid of him but am worried if anything can clean the sand as good as he does....
The rocks moving is another thing too... hes shifted rocks on me by removing the sand underneath...

Still can't deny that he is a good housekeeper At the most, he keeps everything clean You are lucky to have your goby.

 

[ReeferBean]

Lots of water movement over the top of it. Keeps food from settling in dead spots eventually causing algae or cyano.

The conch stirs the substrate up for me a lot.

Mine is not super pristine white like new but its definitely still white after 3 years or so... I agree with the above.

 

[PapaDragon]

My dragon goby is a sand sifting machine.

 

[Bpb]

+1 on people prepping their tanks for a photoshoot. Especially alot of the "Tank of the month" type threads or big massive show off build threads with alot of photoshopping going on. I'm not hating on it. It's fine. People dress up and put on makeup for pictures ect. Clean your house before guests come over, ect. Makes sense to do the same to the tank before showing it off. As far as my own sand bed goes. It stays 90% perfectly white all the time and I feed enough to sustain a dog. I'm not a stud reefer or anything. Just use Caribsea Special grade aragonite. White, small-ish very uniform grain size. Tons of flow ( even after a year I still have to get in and even out mountains on occasion created by flow. Lots of nassarius snails and hermits constantly agitating it. Sand burrowing leopard wrasse who picks multiple spots so she's always making sand fly. Foxface and tang constantly nibbling and sifting the sand for treats all day long. Fish and flow help, but starting with a uniform grain size white sand to begin with is the ticket as well. Shallow sandbed also helps. Mine is only about 1" deep and if I look at the tank from underneith, I don't see black spots of anaerobic activity and detritus. It's just as white as the top

 

[teresamcafee]

Lol!

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

I have a fair amount of snails, including sand sifting snails, and two starfish (brittle and serpent). I think they are the reason my sand bed is pretty clean. I did go through about a month or so of the "ugly" sand bed but now it is pretty.

 

[VelasCorals]

Florida fighting conchs does an amazing job of keep the sand clean and turned over

 

[Jarhead-CO]

how does everybody keep their sand bed so white and clean?

I don't [emoji41]

 

[JMetaxas]

Diamond Goby works at it all day. Granted, he's not getting down the full 2" but he keeps the tops 1/2" clean.

.

 

[dylanst.onge]

As stated before conch, sand sifting stars, and diomond gobies do an awesome job but can knock over or irritate frags on the sand bed

 

[Paul B]

I run a reverse undergravel filter, there is never anything on my "gravel". I don't use sand.
Same gravel over 40 years, nothing on it.