Sand Sifters / Luck With ?

[1boatnut]

Interested in knowing what some of you have used to help maintain your sand bed.
My sand is very fine so unable to vacuum.

I bought a diamond goby who was doing a good job.
Day 2, somehow it managed to jump out of my tank, even though I have glass tops.

So I looked over every possible little nook where it may have jumped from and corrected all areas. I bought another a week later and it was a beast. Cleaning the sand to perfection, along with leaving a dust storm throughout the tank. 1 week later seen it in the tank in the evening, morning found it dead on the floor. Another escapee through glass.

So I'm looking for something and would like to hear what others have had success with.
The LFS is telling me a sand sifting star or a horseshoe crab, both which I have read a lot of negativity about.
Maybe nassarius snails, but I do have a Melanarius Wrasse and if a snail is out of it's shell enough it is toast.

So ideas ?
Fighting Conch ?
Tell me your success

 

[Stork141]

I personally have given up on diamond sleep gobies as i have the same story as yourself. They can get out of anything. I have had sand-sifting stars before and loved them. Never had a problem what so ever. In my current tank i have around 50 nassarius and 15 cerith snails in my 65g to keep my sand bed moving.

Fighting conch arent bad either but ive only ever had a small one 1.5". it was fun to watch him move around but dont have much to say besides that.

I would stay away from a horse shoe crab. Yes they are cool and bulldoze the sand around but unless you have a 3000g pond with no rock it will get way to large for the tank and basically starve itself to death. Besides that they are very clumsy and knock everything over.