Shallow sand bed care.

[BCT182]

Ok, So I had crushed coral as a substrate and I never did anything with it. I now have very fine sand. My sand bed is about 2 inches and in some places 3 inches. I have a little bit of detritus and was looking at some cleaner critters. I was going to get some nassarius snails as I hear they bury themselves in the sand and eat detritus. I was also considering some sort of sand sifting goby. Now I had heard that you want some critters stirring up the sand bed to consume detritus, oxygenate the sand bed and release nitrogen. Is that what I want in a shallow sand bed? I really want help cleaning up the detritus, and keeping my sand white. Any advise will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you kindly,
Brett

 

[BCT182]

Oh I almost forgot, I don't want critters that will eventually eat all the life in my sand bed. I had heard a certain star fish would eat EVERYTHING, and then starve.

 

[NaH2O]

BCT182 - anything you can do to help get rid of detritus will be a benefit, IMO. Stir up the sand and vacuum up the nasties when doing a water change. For detrivore kits (i.e. the little critters bugs, pods, worms) you can purchase them online from places like, Inland Aquatics and IPSF to name a couple. These will help break down waste materials and detritus, but remember....they are taking in those materials, but they also have waste products....so you are making those particles smaller in size. It doesn't just vanish, so try and get it out before it rots in the tank. Nassarius snails are great snails for the bed....they bury themselves with their "snorkles" up, and crawl out when a food source enters.

 

[Curtswearing]

Good advice Nikki,

It is important to keep the top layer aerobic. Some people attach a plastic stick to some medium sized aquarium tubing, start a siphon, and then stir the top layer with the stick. In that way, the siphon hose is held above the sand and never sucks up sand or critters but it does remove a lot of detritus. You can do this when you are doing a water change. If you are not due for a waterchange, you can buy a 1 micron felt filter bag for around $6 at Aquatic Ecosystems, drain the water through the bag into the bucket, and then dump the cleaned water back into the tank. If you have a sump, you can build a filter bag holder that returns the water to the sump after cleaning it like DonW did (quite clever BTW Don). His bucket has a drain and more tubing at the bottom.

PS...your water will be a little cloudy for a couple of hours afterwards but it's not a problem. Your skimmer, corals, and mechanical filtration will remove the floating nutrients.

 

[mfinn]

BCT182,
One of the critters I like for doing clean-up work is the sea cucumber. I have a black one in my 180 that does a pretty good job working the sand. I added a brown and white one to my zoanthid tank and it seems to be doing a good job there as well.

 

[jks1]

I also have a shallow bed. My best stirring critters are a couple of aquacultured fighting conchs. They are always active and move the bed around quite a bit. I also stir the bed frequently and just clean the filter sock in my sump a couple of times a week.

 

[BCT182]

Ok so I got some nassarius snails, a very good move. I also got a yellow head sleeper stupid dumb fish. I put the goby in my tank yesterday at 3pm and didn't see him at all. I saw him for two seconds this morning when the lights were off, and now he's MIA again. Do they act like wimps when first introduced? Or is he currently raising my nitrates and ammonia?
Brett

 

[johnehr]

What are people's opinions on sand shifting starfish, fighting conchs, and the nassarius snails? I too have the fine grained shallow sand bed. Its really cool to see the nitrogen bubbles in it...

Rubber banding a plastic fork to the end of the siphon tube to stir things up eh? Good idea Curtswearing. Are there any rubber bands that are better for salt water than others? Dont want to poison the water with some weird rubber band.

 

[jks1]

I think you are safe with just about any rubberband. As for the fighting conchs and nassarius snails I think they are a must for a sand bed. Unless you have an extremely large tank, I wouldnt recommend a sand sifting star. They are very efficient predators. I had one in my 210g, couldnt figure out why I wasnt seeing amphipods, mysis etc- removed the starfish and w/in a few days started seeing critters.

 

[wrightme43]

Is it a Yellow headed jawfish or a Yellow watchman goby. Jawfish (white body/yellow head) Watchman Yellow (body/small blue dots)? They both like to hide, but IMHO the jawfish is a little worse. Usually IME the jawfish needs a good deep section of substrate to build a burrow, Then they seem to feel more safe. The watchman will be seen more if it has a pistol shrimp to dig a burrow for it, I love to watch them together. On the Nas/Conc/Star question, John nailed it. HTH Steve

 

[BCT182]

its a yellow head or gold head sleeper goby. A sand sifter.

 

[Craig Manoukian]

I have Nassaurius snails and conches as well as Scarlet Hermits that do a great job on my sand bed. Couldn't recommend them more highly!

 

[wrightme43]

NO personal experince with the sleeper gobys Please disregard my post on behavior, it is for jawfish and watchman goby. I have never seen (that I know of) a yellow headed sleeper goby. Could you post a photo for me?