Diamond gobies for no flow pockets? Corals?

[Cthulukelele]

I heard Bella gobies do the same, just swim up and toss out there. I’d be too paranoid about all the euyphyllia getting stressed.

Do you think skipping them all, is it bad to leave a lot of detritus or build up in the crevices - or it’s mainly aesthetic?

Detritus buildup in sand definitely does SOMETHING, but honestly I'm not sure what lol. For me it's always mainly been aesthetic. Interestingly, detritus in our tanks is a pretty wildly variable thing. A lot of it is organic waste (fish crap), but a lot of it is weird stuff like precipitated inert metals, incidentally scraped calcium carbonate dust from fish scraping, etc. I'd vote mostly aesthetic and fine to just suck up at water change as long as it doesn't bug you too bad visually. More flow is also an option. I definitely think a cave goby or hectors or Bella goby could work as they more peck sand than turn it over like x mentioned

 

[NancyFish]

How are your powerheads set up? Maybe post a tank photo here?

These are the spots that are a pain, even if I vacuum I can’t really get back there.

And getting the right flow is rough I’ll admit, still figuring it out a year later. I did try placing a flow pump behind the towers but they’re pretty close to the back wall, so it’ll creep upward behind a lot of coral, and then also to be strong enough to push that all out it practically has to make a bare spot otherwise it just moves gunk forward a little. And I feel like when I try blowing with a baster it just gets buried.

 

[NancyFish]

Detritus buildup in sand definitely does SOMETHING, but honestly I'm not sure what lol. For me it's always mainly been aesthetic. Interestingly, detritus in our tanks is a pretty wildly variable thing. A lot of it is organic waste (fish crap), but a lot of it is weird stuff like precipitated inert metals, incidentally scraped calcium carbonate dust from fish scraping, etc. I'd vote mostly aesthetic and fine to just suck up at water change as long as it doesn't bug you too bad visually. More flow is also an option. I definitely think a cave goby or hectors or Bella goby could work as they more peck sand than turn it over like x mentioned

I thought about the Bella’s goby but I heard they can spit sand pretty high up in tank too. Maybe I’ll try to just continue tinkering with flow.

I actually have a case of cyano I’m dealing with now, I know it shouldn’t be related to water changes and likely because my phosphates are high I assume from pellets - but it was triggered right after a big water change. So that has to be settled first either way somehow, so maybe after I’ll consider something less drastic than the gobies.

 

[Jamie9]

I sure do love my gobies though. If only we could train a YWG to go wherever we want. The cleanest part of my sand bed is always directly in front of his burrow!

 

[Patx]

These are the spots that are a pain, even if I vacuum I can’t really get back there.

And getting the right flow is rough I’ll admit, still figuring it out a year later. I did try placing a flow pump behind the towers but they’re pretty close to the back wall, so it’ll creep upward behind a lot of coral, and then also to be strong enough to push that all out it practically has to make a bare spot otherwise it just moves gunk forward a little. And I feel like when I try blowing with a baster it just gets buried.

If it were me, I wouldn't hesitate to add a diamond goby to this tank. Find a healthy one, and if it seems to be losing weight, add some live oysters that you've previously cut into pieces. (Others fish will love it)

It might create mounds or hollows at the base of the rocks,
and some sand dust will fly from time to time.

All of this helps maintain the sand and keeps it relatively clean.
I have corals on the bottom, and it's never been a problem.
(See my tank thread.)

 

[unchainedcoot]

Dunes of sahara lol. Yeah that was my trade up. Do I want pristine sand and need drag racks or leave them and skip him.

Just lately I’m wondering if it’s healthier for the tank. If you didn’t have one would you stress about dead flow zones, my tube the vacuum barely gets around my rocks to try and clean without knocking stuff down.

The few inches probably won’t be enough to keep it from burying your coral. I’ve found certain corals can tolerate the irritation of being buried better than others. Blastos or anything super fleshy seem to get irritated the most. I’ll try to remember to grab a photo when I get home but mine partially buries a lepto every night and the coral doesn’t seem to care all that much (ie it isn’t dying lol). But he was a better alternative than my bullet goby who would take mouth fulls of sand and then crop dust my rock scape throughout the day. Being LPS heavy tank, I just couldn’t tolerate it anymore and had to rehome him after he killed a blasto and acan. That I do have a photo of

they will only use the footprint of the tank, so to the diamond goby they're the same size. That said, you CAN have success. It's just pretty uncommon long term--especially with diamond gobies. If you have pretty fine grain sand bullet gobies tend to take prepared food better and will still sift sand as long as your sand grain is fine. Also not who you asked, but my bullet goby will oftentimes take a mouthful of sand and walk up a random rock dumping it all the way up. So it's basically just a gradient with them to the top of the tank. Higher = less sand, but sand gets dispersed everywhere for me and I have to manually spray it down lower periodically

i will second this about bullet gobies. I had to eventually rehome mine because every few days he would just crop dust the rock work to this level. He didn’t do it for about 6 months after I got him but one day just picked up the process of taking a mouthful of sand and swimming up above the rock and just broadcasting the sand all over the place. I kept up with the cleaning for a month or so but couldn’t deal with it anymore
At least my diamond only makes mounds out of the sand now

 

[exnisstech]

Does anyone else not clean the sand bed?