How good are sally light foots with reefs??

[mebo926]

Im trying to get stuff thats cleaing the junk on the floor of my sand. So im getting some blennys and gobie. Im wondering though how well sallys do with reefs??

 

[lovethemfish]

From my experiance, and also friends having them, they are good cleaners when they are small. But have heard stories of them becoming agressive as the become bigger and can be a pain to get out of your tank if you run into a problem. I have a diamond gaby and he is a sand cleaning maniac. also my narrissis (spelled wrong) and conchs do a great job at sand cleaning.

 

[mebo926]

i have alot of crap on the sand bed and need to clean it before i get a horrible amonia spike or my nitrates up. i had a conch in there but i put some hermits and snails and a turbo and now he died. im gonna be getting some cleaner clams also.

 

[dave3112]

sand sifting fish are good to clean your sand bed but they also spread the sand on the rocks and corals. That is just something to think about. I don't like them personally. I have used sea cukes to keep my sand bed clean and love them. Just my opinion.

Dave

 

[carolina reefer]

Sally's can become agreesiveand will catch whatever they can.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

For shifting sand, I like Nassarius snails.

Tomoko

 

[scubalauren]

I like sand sifting star fish too!

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Although sand sifting starfish is popular, they are so efficient in eating sand bed fauna that they eventually starve to death in aquarium tanks according to Dr. Ron Shimek. Our tanks are way too small to support them for long.

Tomoko

 

[swearint]

The only problem I ever had with sallys being aggresive was towards other sallys. I never had much success keeping them long term though, six to eight months. Sallys mostly work the rocks, I don't recall seeing them spend much time on the sand unless there was a chunk of food. I have a couple serpent stars and a brittle star that do a good job of cleaning up detritus that I have had for a few years. The easiest thing to do is just vacuum up portions of the sandbed and clean it yourself. Once you get your nutrient levels under control, the sand should stay clean.

Todd