Need help with some sand cleaning critters!

[reefgall]

I have a high fin goby and a pistol shrimp. Do you think it’d be too much to add a diamond watchman? My sand is so dirty and whenever I add new snails and hermits they die or get killed by the others so I rlly only have 3 snails and 4 crabs that strive. The sand cleaner does nothing but remove my sand with the food and algae no matter how I approach it. Pls let me know if I can get a diamond watchman or not. He just seems like he’ll get done what I’m looking to get done. Any help is appreciated!

 

[Coastie Reefer]

Need more info on your tank. Gallons, age, etc. Pics help tremendously.

 

[sghera64]

I have a high fin goby and a pistol shrimp. Do you think it’d be too much to add a diamond watchman? My sand is so dirty and whenever I add new snails and hermits they die or get killed by the others so I rlly only have 3 snails and 4 crabs that strive. The sand cleaner does nothing but remove my sand with the food and algae no matter how I approach it. Pls let me know if I can get a diamond watchman or not. He just seems like he’ll get done what I’m looking to get done. Any help is appreciated!

Or you can do it yourself manually. That’s what I did. Just do about 1/4 of the sand per month. It’s way faster than waiting to get a fish and they are extremely slow to get around to all the tank.

You can siphon the top 2-4 cm in a section and then do another section next month. I used my hands/fingers one month and a dumpling strainer the next month.

I lost patience after second month and just went all out in my 135. In one weekend, I disrupted over half of my deep sand bed all the way down to the glass. The water was so cloudy I could not see the back glass through the front.

The risk of what I did: release a lot of matter into the water causing a bacteria bloom and dropping O2 levels drastically. Releasing too much H2S into the water.

What happened in my case: I never smelled H2S any time I have done this. There was no signs of fish stress or coral stress the first two times I did a 1/4 tank area. After this, my NO3 levels rose from 5ppm to about 25ppm and took over a 6 weeks to come down to about 13-16.

So you can do this by hand in a lot less time and in a more controlled manner. Depending on your sand’s age, depth and fish load or feeding habits, you might only need to do this 1 - 2 times per year.

 

[Beckbacca]

Orange spot goby. Mine keeps my 450 gallon rank sand bed totally clean.

 

[TomToro]

I've been very happy with a sand sifting star, blue spot goby (thought he was dead years ago and he showed up a couple of months ago) and a couple of cucumbers.