Sand Cleaners

[Afrashz]

Just wondering what you guys thought the best snail for cleaning sand was. I have some diatoms that like to sit in the middle of my sand bed that my nerite and trochus snails wont touch.

 

[glb]

I love my nassarius snail. It burrows in the sand and eats everything.

 

[40B Knasty]

+1 nassarias. Just make sure they are not selling you a whelk snail. They look similar. Whelks can eat other snails like nassarias. This happened to me a few weeks ago. Put 3 nassarias in. 5 minutes later the whelk snail came out killed all 3 of them in under 30 minutes. $12 down the drain. I even said before I put the nassarias in, "I haven't seen that bigger black nassarias nail in months." next thing I see is the sand turned over and a straight path to the 3 nassarias.(I knew this because of the cyanobacteria on the sand bed). Then I see this black spike hanging out the whelk snail and it is latched onto the nassarias for the kill.

 

[jd371]

I have two conchs in my tank that do a great job. The nassarius only come out when there is food present but the conch are always out and working on the sand. Thanks to the conchs and my sifting rainford goby my sand is spotless.

 

[40B Knasty]

+1 on the fighting conch. Great little critter! Make sure it is a "fighting" not a "crown" conch. Fighting are smooth shelled. Crown have a spikey shell towards the back. Great for diatoms.