Sandbed Cleaner?

C

critofer

New member
Hey all,

I have decided i need a sand bed cleaner, its looking kinda messy. i have a 29 gallon, what could i get that really cleans the sand? I have 2 clowns, 6 line wrasse, firefish, royalgamma, and yellow watchmen goby. 4 turbos, 4 blue legs hermits, and 1 narsarris snail

ANY IDEAS?
 
More nassarius snails, fighting or tiger conchs, or a cucumber. I have all of them in my 120 and would recommend all of them. I would get a small tiger tail cucumber a fighting conch and a couple more snails.
 
diamond goby is my recommendation... ive had a few and they are absolutly the best thing for that... you need a cover of some sort though as they will jump... nass snails will work too, but youll need a ton for them to do the job right... i had sand in my 40 breeder before i went barebottom... i kept 30 of them, and they still couldnt keep up... so for you im thinken 40 to 50... and they can get costly at that amount... again, diamond gobies are awesome for this and cost usually about 25 to 30 dollars... but even if they are more, they are well well worth it... but again, a cover is a must... but it will be worth it, i promise you that... Good luck my friend
 
Since you already have the yellow watchmen I would highly not recondmended a diamond goby they will fight alot, I would get a conch or some more NASs snails
 
okay, but i have a yellow watchmen goby, wont my watchmen and the diamond goby fight? also, its says the diamonds need a 50 gallon aquarium.
 
I have noticed a big difference in my sand when I have a couple of conchs in there. I love them. I also have some nas snails. I have a 65 and have 2 conchs, 8-10 nas snails. 12-15 red legged hermits, and an assortment of other 10-15 snails.

I have a yellow watchman and tried a diamond with him. No issues between the two, but I gave up on the diamond for other reasons... Here is my experience.

Diamond 1 - Jumped out and carpet surfed

Diamond 2 - Jumped through the newly installed egg crate top and carpet surfed

Diamond 3 - Jumped in between the new installed screen on the newly installed egg crate and got stuck...

Diamond 4 - Was being eaten my my crabs 2 days after getting him. Not sure what was wrong.

I gave up, It wasn't meant to be. $120 in fish, my fiance put her foot down on a 5th try.
 
I had nas snails but they didn't seems to do much for algae that grew on TOP of the sandbed, they spent all their time burrowed. Do any of the things mentioned help for this issue? I've repositioned my PH to increase flow but it still grows...
 
I've lost two diamond gobies to bizarre happenings... first one was found being eaten by crabs... it was in the tank for 6 months, looked very healthy and readily ate foods... pretty sure it must have choked on something and the crabs finished him off.

Second diamond goby disappeared the other night. Yesterday I found my skimmer's pump wasn't working. I dismantled the whole thing thinking the pump's impellers just needed to be cleaned. I found the diamond goby lodged into the pump. It must have jumped into the overflow, gotten into the durso standpipe, then made it all the way through the plumbing into my skimmer... it was a real shocker to find him in there!

The first one kept the sandbed clean though, from day one. The second one not so much. I have a yellow watchman and he picked at the diamonds a good bit, even though I have a 120 Gal tank.

I'd definitely recommend against one in anything smaller unless you don't have another competing species (like a yellow watchman goby) AND know it will readily take foods as it runs out of sand to sift.

one cool thing that happened is that my yellow watchman goby now sifts sand... he must have picked it up watching the diamond, as he never did that before. He doesn't do it a lot, but he will sift little piles right in front of his hole. And YES he actually sifts it through his gills.

Sleeper gobies are known to sift sand much like the diamonds, except they tend to be more of an open water fish like a bar goby... it may be worth looking into. I have never kept one though, but starting to consider it.
 
i will agree with the sand sifting cucumber, very good at it as well... however, if anything stresses it, and this happened to me as it climbed the glass and somehow got entangled in a powerhead and spewed its guts and i lost every single fish in my tank... everyone... and like i mentioned the diamond goby WILL jump, but you need the proper top... unfortunatly these are you two most viable options, however each has its down side... and that 50g specification you mentioned, is really not, imo, necessary for these guys... like i said i had one in my 3' 40g for a while and he was fine... after that until i gave him away, he was in a 20g long (which i believe is the same footprint as a 29) and he did jus fine in there as well...

but again, if you do NOT have the PROPER cover, you will lose him eventually...
 
and i myself have had a yellow watchman with a diamond... never had a problem... but each fish is different of course... once again, Good luck bud :)
 
Okay, tanks hood is a full hood but is open on the back to allow for the pump etc.. how could i fix this? some screening and hotglue?
 
acrylic maybe, or the plastic cover extension things they sell for glass covers to allow cutting for such tubes and pumps and what not... jus a thought
 
+1 on sea cuke getting stuck on a powerhead and simultaneously losing all my fish. It was a basic aquaclear powerhead which had a strainer on it to reduce suction. I guess the cuke pulled the strainer basket off first because it was missing when the cuke was stuck in the intake. The room that the aquarium was in smelled HORRID for days. This was 10+ years ago and my husbandry skills and practices have changed quite a bit since then, but it's worth mentioning b/c I'll never forget what it was like to go through that.
 
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