Keeping sand clean

[rcg49]

Hello everyone!

I always see pictures of beautiful brain coral, feather dusters, and anemones that live in the sand and my question is how do they keep their sand clean?! Right now I clean the top layer of my sand/gravel every major water change with a gravel vacuum. I would be afraid that if I used a gravel vacuum with a sand anemone I would get it all over him : O
So do they just have a lot of hermit crabs and sand sifting starfish or what?

 

[MedRed]

Two fighting conchs in my tank do the trick.

 

[dorky]

One sand shifting goby in my tank did the trick. He got a bad case of ocd cant stand anything tht look dirty. lol

 

[Toddrtrex]

I have had, at least one, sand bed dwelling anemone for the last 13 years. During that time I have been using a gravel vac to keep my sandbed (( shallow )) clean with each weekly water change. Of course I don't dump sand on the anemone(s), but I am not worried about it either.

S. Haddonis can/will fully retract into the sandbed, so they are capable of dealing with a little sand during a water change.

To show how much they can retract...

Gone...

 

[kellerexpress]

+1 to the fighting conch

 

[elegance coral]

I'm with Todd on this. I have a large haddoni, and I vacuum my sand, all the way to the bottom, with a gravel vac, when I do water changes.