My sandbed is super clean right now. When I post pictures of my tank, I always have a couple people ask me how I keep my sandbed so clean. I posted a similar note around 6 months ago because I couldn't stand looking at my dirty sandbed. A few things I tried that did and did not work....
One thing that was suggested to me was a cucumber. I bought a Tiger Tail cucumber that was supposed to be safer than some of the other cucumbers. He was cleaning the parts of the sandbed he could reach, but he died, and luckily I caught his body and tossed it before the decomposing body caused havoc in the tank. I tried another Tiger Tail, and he also died, and I never found his body. Lucikly, nothing happened in the tank. I wouldn't try another cucumber.
Nacarrius snails - I love these guys. Very cool watching them emerge from the sandbed when you feed the tank. They're quick to find uneaten food on the sandbed and help keep the sandbed turned, but you'd need a lot of them to make a dent in the sandbed. I'll always keep these in my tank.
Sandsifting star - A LFS suggested one of these stars to help with my sandbed, so I bought one. Then after researching, which I should have done FIRST, I found that they starve to death unless you have a large tank, and they wipe out the life in the sandbed. Some recommend you have a tank of 100 gallons or larger to be able to keep one of these alive long term. My tank is only 53 gallons, but my sandsifting star has been alive for 18 months and seems to be thriving. He even survived a 3 day power-outage in my tank last winter during a big ice storm, and temps in my tank dropping to 58f degrees. Every one of my fish died during that power-outage, and all of my SPS frags died, but the sandsifting star survived. He does a great job keeping the sandbed turned.
The critter that does the best job at turning my sandbed, is my tiger pistol shrimp. He sure made a mess of the tank for the first couple of weeks, but after he turned the sandbed enough to where the detritus was all mixed into the water column and filtered out, he's no longer making a mess. He's constantly working and digging holes all over the tank by the rock work, which helps keep the sandbed clean. I didn't buy him for this reason, but he's turned out to be a great help keeping the sandbed clean.
Probably the thing I did that helped clean my dirty sandbed the most, was adding a powerhead. I added a power-head in the back of my tank, behind the rockwork, at the bottom near the sandbed, pointed to the water's surface. Before I added that power-head, I only had two powerheads at the top of the tank facing each other. The sandbed in the back of the tank behind the rock, was the dirtiest. This keeps most everything from settling to the sandbed.
Pam
