Nassarius Snails and Sand Cleaning

[Fishyfish22]

I've tried a variety of things, in the end I can only account for my experiences. This is it though.

Diamond Goby: this dude was so cool at first. He had a small cave he'd like. Then I realized what he was actually doing was burrying and moving around rockwork under there, little by little. He sifted the sand well, but too well. There was always sand in the water column making the tank look dusty. That and the number of times he jumped into my annoyingly tall overflow meant he had to go. I realized though he only cleaned surface sand. When i lifted a rock, the bottom that was in the sand bed would be dark and necrotic and corals would suffer from everything being released into the water.

Sleeper head goby: this one was cooler than the diamond. I got a good deal on a really big one, about 7" long. He did an even better job than the diamond, but His sand clouds were worse. At least he didn't jump into the overflow box, but he did like to play a game called "find the coral" where every few hours he'd bury or flip over any coral in the sand bed and I'd have to unbury it. Welsos, fungias, zoa rocks, clams. Nothing was safe, After I lost my second maxima clam to it, he had to go. I had the same issue with the rocks, dark tissue and gross

Sand sifting starfish: these are cool too. Plus, starfish. I ultimately lost mine because my father added a harlequin shrimp to take care of asterina star population, thinking hed go for the overabundant source of food than the giant slow starfish. The sst did a good job sifting but within a month he cleaned out my sand bed TOO well. It was starting to go on the glass when the harlequin got to it, meaning it had run out of food. Now this was a 180 gallon tank with a 72"x24" DSB. These guys clean well, then starve and you have the same issue from before, back to cleaning the sand bed manually gross buried rock was also an issue with these.

For the last year and a half I went with what I personally found to be the best mix: nassarius snails and fighting conches. I got about 200 snails and 2 conches, as well as a dozen dwarf planaxis and since then my sandbed has looked amazing, without the need of a dust cloud. Added benefit? I was reaquascaping and had to remove a rock from the sand bed. I prepared myself for the rotting smell of the underside of the rock. But when I pulled it out... nothing. Bottom of the rock was clean. I pulled out another rock that had been completely submerged. Same thing, nice and clean without any rot. I'm not sure whether it was the planaxis, but those things were tiny and I didn't see any when I pulled the rock out.
Havent added any snails for the last year or so, but I'm still happy with the sand bed being moved how it is. The top 2 inches at least, nassarius snails and fighting conches were the way to go

 

[Michael Rossi]

@FishyFish thank you so much for sharing your experience. I've heard many similar stories with the gobies which is why my gut was telling me not to get them. My wife really wants a starfish and I had a sand sifter before and loved it. I'll definitely be picking one up once the LFS has it in stock.

I've slowly been adding the CUC every couple weeks to keep up with the added bio-load and algae growth. I'll continue to add nassarius snails as well. And as for the conch and dwarf planaxis, I just looked both up and will do more research. They sound like exactly what I need.

Do you think a single conch would be enough for a 75gal?

 

[Fishyfish22]

@FishyFish My wife really wants a starfish

I'd reccomend a different kind of starfish then, because the sand sifting star is already going to compete for food with the nassarius. One or the other will win, except even if the star starves out the nassarius, itll probably finish out your sand bed and then starve anyways after eating both the good and the bad stuff from your sand bed. Not to mention that you'll pay a good amount of money for it and wont see it due to how often they bury

Depending on what you want to keep as far as coral/livestock, you could try a chocolate chip starfish. They do eat some species of coral. Or maybe a harlequin serpent star.

@FishyFish
Do you think a single conch would be enough for a 75gal?

I think the rule for conches was 1 for every 1 or 2 square feet of surface area of sand. Take a rough estimate of the sand bed, not counting areas where there are rock or coral covering it. Add one at a time, these guys are definitely really cool to watch

 

[Gobi-Wan]

I had one before for a short period of time before went carpet diving. He worked really hard but it made a mess everywhere as I got corals on the sandbed. So if you don’t, he’s definitely one of the best choice

I should have said, I learned the hard way in my 75 gallon reef. There was a constant cloud of sand until i eventually got a tang that hated the goby for some reason and wouldn't let it coke out from under the rocks. The tang went, and the goby stayed. I upgraded to a 125 and was determined for the goby to keep his job, so i rinsed the new sand until there were no refine particles left. This is the key if you want sand sifting gobies. It can be done... it is a tedious process but totally worth it imo. Now with fairly stout flow from 2 gyre pumps, and the goby constantly turning sand over pretty aggressively, almost all my detritus settles in the sump where it can be vaccumed out. I get MUCH faster detritus buildup in the sump than I did in the 75 setup, and I am less stocked right now. Though I am also not running a skimmer right now so that probably has an effect on it.