Sifting Sand

[Saltwaterstart]

Hello everyone.

I seem to have a problem with my sand now. I do have a dead spot with the way my rock is shaped, and I was hoping to know if anyone knew what kind of creature would sift the sand. A bit of cyano buildup is there, and I was looking for a solution.

My bioload is a little high right now, so I would prefer sand sifting gobies be left out, but if I have to, I will buy one.

The only problem with my tank is something seems to be killing off my snails, or they crawl into the back chamber and die. I was considering nassarius snails, but I don't want to take the risk.

Any suggestions?

[RyanMcLaughlin]

You could get a sand sifting sea star. They are great for stirring up the sand bed and eat left over food and other stuff in the bed. You do have to have a deep sand bed though.

[taillonjohn]

I would hold off on a seastar until you do proper research, many stars are not good for the tank/sandbed.

besides that, there really isnt much info on your tank, or whats in your tank, so we cant comment on what would be killing your snails.

for your dead spot issue, again, I dont know how much flow you have in the tank already, but I would suggest maybe increasing the flow, or playing around with your current powerheads to try to reduce dead spots.

[m2434]

I agree seastars = bad. The good ones don't survive and the ones that do are a PITA. Sand sifiting organisms will all distrub you sand bed and kill off many benificial organisms living there. This may be okay, tanks can do fine withouth them for the most part, but not my prefrence and sort of defetes the purpous of having a sand bed in the first place IMO. I agree taillonjohn, flow is the first place you should start.

[Saltwaterstart]

Right now, I have a 29 gallon biocube with a 3.5" sandbed with the problems.

For inhabitants, the only things that I could think would eat the snails would be the cleaner shrimp, sixline wrasse, red legged hermits or the large bristleworm. (I'm not sure it's a fireworm, but it is pink without the black bands). I'm sure hawkfish won't eat snails.

As for flow, I have the stock biocube pump, along with a Koralia nano and an aquaclear 20 powerhead. I have the stock pump circulating the upper half of the aquarium, and I have the koralia and aquaclear powerheads circulating the bottom and back.

My aquascaping is probably causing the problem because I have a large cave right in the middle of the tank that blocks off flow, and I also have a bunch of discoma mushrooms in the cave.

I'm not sure I can fool around with the flow anymore than I have been, unless I stick a powerhead directly in the cave (which is probably not a good idea). I might need to start to Re-Aquascape.

Here's an older picture, from when coral stocking was very light. The powerhead is lower now and in a different position. I think it might be time for an updated picture.



Would you need any other information to help me out?

I'm also having a green algae problem on the glass. Is there anything I could do about that? The magnet doesn't seem to want to scrape it off.