Pico tank CUC questions...

HumblePie · Jun 23, 2020

Hey all,

A few months back I decided to jump back to the saltwater world after sitting the bench for about 11-12 years. I was able to repurpose an old Fluval 2.6 that I had used for a freshwater shrimp tank. The tank has cycled and is stock, minus some media in the back and a Kessil A80. I've started to stock the tank with some LPS, Zoas, a few rock anemones and a couple small Astrea snails. But what I really need is something to turn over the sand. I've read plenty of posts on here with lots pointing out the Nassarius Snail as a good option. Sadly, I don't plan on feeding the tank (at least for now) as the water volume is so small, the tank can get out of balance very quickly. I was hoping for micro brittle stars but only need a few and don't want to pay $30 to ship 5 of 'em :) Do folks have some other thoughts on other options that I can consider for such a small space? Ideally, anything I can find will be 1/2" or smaller. Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks.

andrewey · Jun 23, 2020

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Just a quick thought- have you considered skipping the inverts to turn over your sand completely? On my last pico, I didn't have any fish and fed so rarely that I had very little detritus building up in/on the sandbed. Plus, my sandbed was pretty shallow, so all told it really didn't need to be stirred up outside of physically stiring it a bit with every water change.

HumblePie · Jun 23, 2020

Thanks for the welcome!

That's a great point. Technically speaking, I probably don't really need it. One thing that I am dealing with from time to time is that since there is very little organics in the tank, I am getting small pockets of what I believe are dinos. I think this is really due to the fact that I have been doing weekly RO/DI water changes (about 1/2G which is approx. 25% of my current water volume) and that is keeping my params pretty much negligible. I was kind of hoping that by using something to help turn over the sand a bit, it might help with this while accounting for any other sand bed cleanup that might be necessary.

@andrewey - By chance, in your last pico, where you just running snails or did you have other CUC inverts? Thanks.