A good creature to store up my sand bed?

[lilfish717]

My sand bed is a little dirty. What's a good fish/invert thay will help take care of that for my reef tank and stir it up? I have black hawaii(i think that's it's name) sand. It's pretty thick grains. About 1cm. Thanks.

 

[Pbh-reef]

How large is the tank?

 

[lilfish717]

How large is the tank?

55

 

[Pbh-reef]

So with that sand I wouldn’t do a goby but a sand sifting sea star could work. A few conch snails would also work.

#reefsquad what do you think?

 

[lilfish717]

So with that sand I wouldn’t do a goby but a sand sifting sea star could work. A few conch snails would also work.

#reefsquad what do you think?

I have a little sand tiger conch now. He's one of my favorite tankmates mates. He's awesome. I was think about getting 2 more. He will never be able to clean this tank up by himself.

 

[DSC reef]

I would say conchs, nassarius snails. Manually siphon a little at a time might be best.

 

[lilfish717]

I would say conchs, nassarius snails. Manually siphon a little at a time might be best.

Is there any fish that would help me out with this? I would like to not siphon it just because it makes me feel like I'm taking from my currently little cuc's food supply. How many tiger and conch do you recommend for a 55 or a different kind of conch

 

[DSC reef]

Unfortunately I wouldn't recommend any sand sifting fish. Depending on the bioload I would say a few conchs and a few nassarius would be fine, you don't want to many.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I'm not 100% sure because of your sand, but I have a yellow sea cucumber that does wonders in my 40g cube.

 

[lilfish717]

I'm not 100% sure because of your sand, but I have a yellow sea cucumber that does wonders in my 40g cube.

Never knew about a yellow one? I was looking at a black one in my lfs. Just never pulled the trigger due to the toxins when they die.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I have always had a yellow sand sifting sea cucumber in my tanks. Of course it's easy for me, I can collect them when I go snorkeling in the Florida Keys. And I had one die in a small 35g tank and it didn't cause any issues with the rest of the tank. The one in my 40g cube is about as big around as my thumb and varies from 4" to 6" long depending on what he's doing when I see him. And he will disappear into the sand and I sometimes won't see him for a week or more. I have 2+" of sand and almost no rocks in the sand due to an egg crate platform just above the sand that my rockscape sits on. It's an unusual tank set up. You can see it in my tank build thread and there is a link to it in my signature below.