Hi all,
New here so go easy on me. As the title says, I'm looking for a good sand cleaner critter. Now before everyone starts recommending sea cucumbers...I have a history with em. When I moved a couple years ago I had the luxury of having the second tank (now my primary) at the new house for a week prior to moving. I set it up (R.O., Instant Ocean, temp, etc) Moved the rock first, then started moving the livestock. Amongst the livestock was an Atlantic Sea Cucumber I had had for about 3 months prior. Within the first 24hrs or so the cucumber was nowhere to be found and the fish started twitching and gasping at the surface. Now this was my first cucumber so I didn't think to suspect him at first. I broke out the test kits thinking ammonia spike in new tank. Nope fine. Ran every test kit I had and all seemed good. Temp was same as the other tank, it had sat with pumps running empty for a week ahead of time...what was going on?! Then the lightbulb went off, where was the cucumber?
I had by this time lost a couple fish, and the rest and a few mushroom corals were moved to a 29 gallon I threw together out of desperation to save them (most made it...but there were losses). Now to find the cucumber. I started moving rocks and there he was laying in the back on the sand behind the rockwork flat and very dead. Removed all the water, rinsed the rocks and refilled the tank. Life went on.
So understand me if I am very leary about putting one of these guys back in my tank again. He was amazing in how he could leave a nice clean path as he moved around the tank "polishing" my sand like a little factory...but the risk. Is there a "non-toxic" member of this family? Is there anything else out there that does this sort of work but is safer? I have some nassarius snails in there now and they move the sand around well enough but nothing really "cleans" it. Current inhabitants are two Tomato Clowns (about 2" each), two tiny chromis, and a beautiful dwarf angel that was labeled a "bicolor" but it looks very similar to a coral beauty minus the orange on the side but a yellow mark on his head (about 2"), and two cleaner shrimp, various corals.
Some suggestions I've read (or tried) include the following:
Cerith Snails - I've yet to see them work on the substrate in any of my tanks. They are great, however, at cleaning the glass below the sand line sometimes.
Various Gobies - Not sure what they get out of each mouthful of sand. The one I had was a horribly messy eater. He liked grabbing huge mouthfuls of sand and sifting it like snow over all the corals and rocks in my tank. The Corals obviously didn't appreciate it much.
Sand Sifting Starfish - I tried these for a few years. They seem to work pretty good for a while then eventually die. I did some reading which included a few research papers and found that they are actually NOT a great thing to have in your tank. Sure they do stir up the sand as they forage. The problem is, they tend to forage for the organisms in your substrate that are beneficial to your tank. Once they wipe out the colony of beneficial organisms they slowly starve to death.
Fighting Conch - Never tried them before, but I'm guessing they work like Nassarius Vibex and scavenge morsels of lost food and debris they can find. Good for oxygenating the sand, but short of stirring it up, they don't really clean it up either.
Sorry for the long post, just felt the background may help guide the discussion or suggestions better.
Thanks so much!
Brodie
New here so go easy on me. As the title says, I'm looking for a good sand cleaner critter. Now before everyone starts recommending sea cucumbers...I have a history with em. When I moved a couple years ago I had the luxury of having the second tank (now my primary) at the new house for a week prior to moving. I set it up (R.O., Instant Ocean, temp, etc) Moved the rock first, then started moving the livestock. Amongst the livestock was an Atlantic Sea Cucumber I had had for about 3 months prior. Within the first 24hrs or so the cucumber was nowhere to be found and the fish started twitching and gasping at the surface. Now this was my first cucumber so I didn't think to suspect him at first. I broke out the test kits thinking ammonia spike in new tank. Nope fine. Ran every test kit I had and all seemed good. Temp was same as the other tank, it had sat with pumps running empty for a week ahead of time...what was going on?! Then the lightbulb went off, where was the cucumber?
I had by this time lost a couple fish, and the rest and a few mushroom corals were moved to a 29 gallon I threw together out of desperation to save them (most made it...but there were losses). Now to find the cucumber. I started moving rocks and there he was laying in the back on the sand behind the rockwork flat and very dead. Removed all the water, rinsed the rocks and refilled the tank. Life went on.
So understand me if I am very leary about putting one of these guys back in my tank again. He was amazing in how he could leave a nice clean path as he moved around the tank "polishing" my sand like a little factory...but the risk. Is there a "non-toxic" member of this family? Is there anything else out there that does this sort of work but is safer? I have some nassarius snails in there now and they move the sand around well enough but nothing really "cleans" it. Current inhabitants are two Tomato Clowns (about 2" each), two tiny chromis, and a beautiful dwarf angel that was labeled a "bicolor" but it looks very similar to a coral beauty minus the orange on the side but a yellow mark on his head (about 2"), and two cleaner shrimp, various corals.
Some suggestions I've read (or tried) include the following:
Cerith Snails - I've yet to see them work on the substrate in any of my tanks. They are great, however, at cleaning the glass below the sand line sometimes.
Various Gobies - Not sure what they get out of each mouthful of sand. The one I had was a horribly messy eater. He liked grabbing huge mouthfuls of sand and sifting it like snow over all the corals and rocks in my tank. The Corals obviously didn't appreciate it much.
Sand Sifting Starfish - I tried these for a few years. They seem to work pretty good for a while then eventually die. I did some reading which included a few research papers and found that they are actually NOT a great thing to have in your tank. Sure they do stir up the sand as they forage. The problem is, they tend to forage for the organisms in your substrate that are beneficial to your tank. Once they wipe out the colony of beneficial organisms they slowly starve to death.
Fighting Conch - Never tried them before, but I'm guessing they work like Nassarius Vibex and scavenge morsels of lost food and debris they can find. Good for oxygenating the sand, but short of stirring it up, they don't really clean it up either.
Sorry for the long post, just felt the background may help guide the discussion or suggestions better.
Thanks so much!
Brodie
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