Sand cleaner??

[Necsones]

my sand is satrting to look bad, its growning some algae on it what can i get to munch on it and keep it turned? are sand sniffing sea stars hard to keep? would they do the job? also i think i need something to clean up this detritus, think its gettin a lil backed up..

 

[greenbean36191]

Yes, nearly impossible to keep long-term. Yes, it would do the job as far as turning the sand over to hide the algae, but no it won't do anything to fix the problem. The star will do nothing in that regard. You're going to have to remove the detritus by hand.

 

[Tennyson]

There is actually a better way. Any sand sifting goby. I had the same problem, but the diamond watchman goby took care of it.

 

[Guygettnby]

i use lots of little hermits and snails to keep my sand clean. they do a decent job of it, but the only way to really geat a good clean sand is the clean it yourself.

 

[DNickell]

I had a sea cucumber for a long time. It did a good job in the sand, but would take occassional detours over the rock and knock things over. They are light enough though, that even as clumsy as they are, they can't knock over much if it is reasonably secured.

They are interesting critters, taking the sand in the front end and leaving a trail of "cleaned" sand behind. They sort of shoot it out the back like little bullets...

The other down side is that when it finally died it made a real mess, even though I got it removed quickly. The fibrous residue it left after it died was enough to make me stay away from them since.