sand sifter problem plz help!

[godlyme]

ok, i have a 75 gal mixed reef with a 3-5inch sand bed. purchased a sand sifter goby thought it would be good idea to help keep ank/ sand clean. ok now every coral is covered with sand dust constantly. tank is always cloudy from him sifting non stop.. i have hundreds of pounds of live rock so i have no clue how to fix this problem... i want sand clouds to stop...easy way to catch him? net no way...im afriad if i siphon sand rocks will colapse.....anyone else this happen to? or ideas

 

[matt frizz]

It is so hard to get those bottom dwelling, rock hiding fish out of a tank with so much live rock. You should try a fish trap but what i ultimately had to do was tank breakdown. Gave me a chance to re-do my rock scape though.

 

[strout]

The same thing happened to me when I put the sand sifter in my mixed reef tank, man was I was regretting that choice, it got better though. After the sand sifter had gone thru the whole sand bed and cleaned it up, the sand storms weren't that bad because the sand had been cleaned. Not a lot you can do about the sand getting all over everything though, that's why there won't be one in my new SPS tank. I am trying to come up with something else to replace the sand sifter in the new tank.

 

[snorvich]

Well sand sifters often deplete your sand bed of beneficial organisms while spreading sand all over everything. My recommendation would be to remove.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Could you slowly put a coarser (larger-grained) sand on top of the existing sand bed so that the sand it picks up is more likely to drop straight to the bottom and thus is less likely to be blown around the tank?

Use only thin layers to avoid trapping detritus.

 

[BlueDartReefer]

Do you use any kind of sock filters on your system? When I added our Diamond Goby a few years ago to our 90G, the sand storms lasted about two weeks. Once all the detritus was filtered out, the water cleared right up.

 

[godlyme]

yeah have sock filter...i really want to remove him....i was thinking of adding heavier sand...but was hoping for an easy solution...what fish trap would work on him? also fish traps i see cost ridiculous...there is now sand dunes in odd places....i wish i had a mini spear gun...

 

[matt frizz]

yeah have sock filter...i really want to remove him....i was thinking of adding heavier sand...but was hoping for an easy solution...what fish trap would work on him? also fish traps i see cost ridiculous...there is now sand dunes in odd places....i wish i had a mini spear gun...

lol to the mini spear gun. I ended up buying an expensive fish trap but at least I'll always have one now. It's how I got a tang out of my 50 breeder (a mistake that won't be repeated). I tried making my own trap but these bottom dwellers seem to never trust the tank owner IME and everytime I put my hand in *poof* a puff of sand and he's gone.

Look into a fish trap and reserve some serious patience to get him out. On another note, I can finally use the classifieds now after 2 years on this forum lol. :uzi:

 

[Mark 75g]

i had this issues about 2 years ago. I got a long plastic container and put on the sand bed. i basically had to stand around with my grippers holding the lid. Once he swam in i put the lid on. Took awhile but it worked.

 

[godlyme]

how would i bait the trap? should it be clear or dark? also sounds interesting with the plastic container...any details on it?

 

[BassMekanik]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gKizvpGKPk

I tried that to catch some Damsels in my tank. It caught every single fish but the Damsels...lol.