Sand-sifting fish?

[bsmith22]

I have a 55 gallon tank with a few zoas and one ricordea mushroom, snails and hermits. I have a diatom outbreak at the moment and would like some help....

What's the best sand-sifting fish?

I have 2 damsels in the tank right now, but would eventually like to get a pair of clowns and a yellow watchman goby.

Thanks all!

 

[Dizzle63]

I would simply leave them be. Your tank is only two months old if I am reading your profile correctly. Tanks cycle through different algaes and this is one of them. Make sure you keep up on your water changes. What type of snails do you have?

 

[bsmith22]

Yes, thats correct. Started it Jan 3 of this year. I know that this is one the algae stages, but even the snail's shells are covered in brown... They don't seem to be keeping up with it.

Any idea how long this brown phase will last?

I have 10 nassarius, 10 astrea, 10 ceriths, and 5 mini-hermits.

 

[chimmike]

there are a few gobies that are AWESOME sand-sifters. I had one that I gave away because he was just destroying my sand bed, lol.

 

[natereinhold1]

I keep a diamond goby and he turns over my 80lb sandbed quite well and he only digs/turns over the top 2 inches or so and leaves the bottom 2-3 undisturbed

 

[natereinhold1]

actually now that i think about it i have more like 110 lbs.

 

[gradth]

Dragon goby. Great sand sifters.

 

[650-IS350]

Dragon Gobies,
Golden sleeper heads and like type sleeper heads
Diamond goby ( if you want a fish the stays predomenantly at the bottom )
Hover goby's, small and sift the top layer only.

 

[blazing]

hey i started my tank around that time too and 2 days ago i seen a little bit of some brown algae growing on the one side of the tank and the next day it was covering just about the whole tank. even some of my sand was brown and so was some of the hermit crabs shell was too.so is this normal? any one know where i can find out more about this "algae stages"?