Detritus sandbed cleaner?

[ficklefins]

What is your choice in a good detritus sandbed cleaner?

 

[FateX8]

im actually looking for a good crew too
right now i only know of nassarius which are cheap and i think cucumbers do that too but not REALLY sure
i know they take in the sand and poop out clean sand, or so ive heard

 

[ficklefins]

I was thinking something in the conch family or a brittle star. I have nassarius snails and whatever they are not eating is what I am looking to get rid of.

 

[FateX8]

yeah theyre not the best but im not a fan of brittles
conch maybe but i dont think theyre really fast
what about micro brittles?

 

[Russellaqua]

Solomon Island tiger tail cucumbers do a good job at controlling detritus. One for every 30 gallons or so will keep your tank pretty clean. Many cucumbers are quite toxic, but these are not, so be sure to get them from someone who knows the difference. I keep some in my tanks and they do an awesome job.

 

[saltwaternewb]

Do they eat snail poop too? My tank is covered with poop from just 4 snails and that is it.

 

[reef-lover]

I have a decorator goby that keeps my sandbed SPOTLESS, and rarely bothers any corals that are directly on the sand.

 

[salt newbie01]

Sandsifting gobies do a good job of keeping the top layer od sand clean. And usually don't mess with corals to bad. Unless you have a bunch of low lying sand bed corals like fungia plates. I also love mu queen conch. Does a good job of cleaning th etop layer and burrowing through and stirring lower levels of sand.

 

[reefcleaners]

I got to go with the true Florida Fighting Conch. The west indian fighting conchs are cool, (they are the small yellow ones), but lack many of the cool features of the fighting conch like the large trunk to feed with and those large eye stalks. Cool as hell.

 

[FateX8]

those eye stalks freak me out!
have you ever seen a conch with split eye stalks? theres an eyestalk and then where the eye should be it just splits off to 2 eye stalks, ive seen them with 3 and 4 eye stalks
scary!

 

[reefcleaners]

3 and 4? Never heard of that, the fighting conch only has 2. What kind has 3 or 4?

 

[FateX8]

the fighting conch, its not 3 or 4 seperate stalks
they have 2 main stalks but sometimes at the end they split into a Y so from 1 stalk they have 2 eyes
its creepy

 

[gflat65]

I've always used cukes for the sand.

 

[ZooYorkUnderworld]

I have a cuc,stomatella's, and alot of mini brittles at night they go to work, I think the brittles are the best cleaners in my reef and they multiply like crazy!

 

[Eklikewhoa]

I have a small tank so Nassarius and Ceriths do the job for me.....Also have 2 Randalls pistol shrimp that do a fair job of keeping their area turned.

As for Fighting Conch's.....here's a beast that came from [email protected]

 

[Smarsh]

I employ the tiger tail cuc's. they do an awesome job. I have 4 of them in the 180, 1 of them being a giant and they do a pretty good job.They will even crawl up on the rocks to get pockets of detritus that is sitting there. Pretty neat to watch.

Sandy

 

[shred5]

Cucumbers are good.

Best way though is not let detritus settle to begin with. By providing a good flow over the sandbed. Also elevating the rocks slightly over it will not allow the detritus to settle between the rocks plus it allows for more even flow over the sandbed.

Dave