Sand sifting seahorse tank mates?

[NarnyTheGreat]

I am converting my octopus tank into a sea horse/pipefish tank. The octopuses I kept in this tank ate all the clean up crew with exception of 2 serpent sea stars and a bat starfish (lives in the sump now because I started adding macro).

The problem now is the tank is covered in a nasty cloudy silt.

I would like to go ahead a put a fish in there that would help clear this up but I am unsure which goby would work best.

Also do serpent sea stars pose a threat to the sea horses or pipefish? They are cold water species given to me from a friend in Cali who caught them himself when he sent me my octopus.

 

[NarnyTheGreat]

No one??

 

[rayjay]

Hello Narny,
Please have some patience as the more knowledgeable people don't have time to sit on the forum waiting for questions.
Some check once a day, others more like once a week.
I don't have the knowledge to answer your questions fully but I can tell you that I found my serpent stars to be attempting to catch my seahorses when I first started out, so I put them back with the others in the reef tanks.
I have no experience using a fish to clean cloudy silt and indeed, wouldn't have thought of it as I would vacuum out the silt and use a polish type filter to remove what is in the water column.
By cold water species, what temperature do you mean?
How big a tank is this, and how many seahorses and pipefish are going to be in there?
What are you feeding them? Have they been already trained to eat frozen?
Do you have them yet to take pictures and put on here?

 

[NarnyTheGreat]

Well it ranges from 60 when I kept my octopus (bimac) in the tank to 70 which is the current temp. I keep it this low to maintain the serpent seastar and the bat star. The highest I could keep this tank is 72 which is a somewhat high but still an acceptable temp for all animals involved.

The tank is a 50 gallon cube with a 20 gallon sump. I dont currently have the seahorses or pipefish yet. I am trying to get the tank cleaned. My octopus died some weeks ago (natural end of life) and I am in the process of getting the rock work reworked for the new animals I would like to add.

The silt I have been vacuuming out. But its a pain. As soon as I do some more falls back in its place. I was hoping that there might be a fish I could put in that would A) clean the sand and keep the silt shifted so more would come out and B) be compatible with seahorses/pipefish.

 

[Tucson Reef]

Well, just had a talk by Sandy Shoup and looked at some different sand beds under some high dollar microscopes yesterday at the local club.

Sandy brought up some interesting points about sand size and the sand beds as a whole being a living organizum. One of her main points was disturbing the sand bed and sand sifters being bad. You need the sand bed to be alive with critters of all sizes, but sand sifting stars will eat these critters and eventualy kill your bed.

Now IMO, if you are just keeping a shallow bed(for looks) this dosn't really apply as much if at all, but if deep as mine(3"+) it makes a lot of sense. I have been keeping deep beds for years with great sucess, had one Reef set up for over 15 years, that seldom got fed outside of when company came over. It also had very few water changes(2 or 3 of 10% a year), the Bi-Color Angel lived for the entire 15 years, fat and happy, living off the algaes and critters.

So back to your question, your bed is probably shot, if it was me, depending on tank size (cost), I would probably take it out and get new substrate. If that was not possible, I would spend a day cleaning up this substrate. How you do this is up to you and a time factor of how soon you want it ready to go again. If you are only wanting it for looks, 1" or so, just take it out and wash it, your rock will reinoculate it. If you have it deeper, either vacum or wash in SW. I would then find a local that had a great tank that had been up for sometime and see what their bed looked like and maybe get a cupfull. You cand also buy starter cultures on line to start or reinoculate your bed, GARF used to sell mud and there are others.

 

[NarnyTheGreat]

Thank you rayjay and tucson.

I had actually thought about adding new sand. The sand that is there is pretty nasty now that I have moved things around and it seems no matter how much I vacuum it more silt settles in its place. I will probably drain the tank and put new sand in and start over with water from my other tank. I dont have anything other than macro and the stars in the tank so it wont be to much of a hassle.

I bought the tank used and it already had sand in it... I should have just tossed the sand and moved on then *sigh* you live and learn right.

 

[Tucson Reef]

Another point, if you want it to be a live sand bed (deeper then 1 1/2") get a very fine substrate, finer then sugar grain. Its a long explanation, but it has to do with the critters being able to get between the grains and surface area, coarser sand is actually worse for a live bed.

 

[NarnyTheGreat]

My octopuses always dug up and around in the sand so having a dsb would have been a horrible idea there, but for this I think it should be ok. If I dont do seahorses I will just turn it into a fish tank with smallish fish or have smallish octopuses that dont dig.

 

[small alien]

Can we see some pics of e situation? It's hard to fully understand what's going on.

 

[TamiW]

I'm in agreement, I would replace the bed. Or get rid of it all together. I used to be very pro-sand bed and I am in a lot of applications - but RayJay has helped me see the light regarding cleanup and seahorse poo and and bare bottoms. Its just easier. Most of my seahorses are maintained on barebottom (though I still have some in displays with sand). You can still have a pretty damn nice looking tank that is bare bottom.

However, that being said, if I was to do a sandbed I'd make sure its at east moderately deep to support various sea life, i.e. at least 3 inches, and very fine. One of the most active sandbeds I had was when I used a silty limestone I found as a pavers base at home depot. I ended up using a screen to remove the big chunks and what remained was perfect. Much closer to what you actually find on the sea floor (from my admittedly limited experience). My next big tank I'll probably play with a few different types of substrates to see if I can match a very natural sand bed.

 

[amazo]

+1 on getting rid of old sand,But an engineneer gobby is my choice of sand sifter/mover I keep a pair in my main display tank.They can't be with seahorses but can really move sand and keep stuff from building up.The big draw back is they only dig under and around live rock,my set up has a lot of "caves" with access to the sand that I would have a hard time cleaning,but they take care of it for me.Also some times they make big piles of sand but put a piece of rock there and they will prob. move the sand. You are going to be better of with new or no sand that way there is less chance of harmful bacteria you never know what you might release from the sand,I just lost a Kuda after cleaning my sandbed think I might have stirred something up now I'm debating no sand.