Sifting Sand

[Saltwaterstart]

Hello everyone.

I seem to have a problem with my sand now. I do have a dead spot with the way my rock is shaped, and I was hoping to know if anyone knew what kind of creature would sift the sand. A bit of cyano buildup is there, and I was looking for a solution.

My bioload is a little high right now, so I would prefer sand sifting gobies be left out, but if I have to, I will buy one.

The only problem with my tank is something seems to be killing off my snails, or they crawl into the back chamber and die. I was considering nassarius snails, but I don't want to take the risk.

Any suggestions?

 

[RyanMcLaughlin]

You could get a sand sifting sea star. They are great for stirring up the sand bed and eat left over food and other stuff in the bed. You do have to have a deep sand bed though.

 

[taillonjohn]

I would hold off on a seastar until you do proper research, many stars are not good for the tank/sandbed.

besides that, there really isnt much info on your tank, or whats in your tank, so we cant comment on what would be killing your snails.

for your dead spot issue, again, I dont know how much flow you have in the tank already, but I would suggest maybe increasing the flow, or playing around with your current powerheads to try to reduce dead spots.

 

[m2434]

I agree seastars = bad. The good ones don't survive and the ones that do are a PITA. Sand sifiting organisms will all distrub you sand bed and kill off many benificial organisms living there. This may be okay, tanks can do fine withouth them for the most part, but not my prefrence and sort of defetes the purpous of having a sand bed in the first place IMO. I agree taillonjohn, flow is the first place you should start.

 

[Saltwaterstart]

Right now, I have a 29 gallon biocube with a 3.5" sandbed with the problems.

For inhabitants, the only things that I could think would eat the snails would be the cleaner shrimp, sixline wrasse, red legged hermits or the large bristleworm. (I'm not sure it's a fireworm, but it is pink without the black bands). I'm sure hawkfish won't eat snails.

As for flow, I have the stock biocube pump, along with a Koralia nano and an aquaclear 20 powerhead. I have the stock pump circulating the upper half of the aquarium, and I have the koralia and aquaclear powerheads circulating the bottom and back.

My aquascaping is probably causing the problem because I have a large cave right in the middle of the tank that blocks off flow, and I also have a bunch of discoma mushrooms in the cave.

I'm not sure I can fool around with the flow anymore than I have been, unless I stick a powerhead directly in the cave (which is probably not a good idea). I might need to start to Re-Aquascape.

Here's an older picture, from when coral stocking was very light. The powerhead is lower now and in a different position. I think it might be time for an updated picture.

Would you need any other information to help me out?

I'm also having a green algae problem on the glass. Is there anything I could do about that? The magnet doesn't seem to want to scrape it off.

 

[Saltwaterstart]

Has anyone got any other ideas?

I'm kind of in a little bit of a situation here.

 

[papagimp]

my 2 cents, ignore the sand sifting star altogether. It'll starve to death eventually. These are not a good choice for any hobbyist, despite any research they do or don't on them. They just cannot be fed properly in the majority of home aquaria due to the massive amounts of open sandbed they would require. They eat not only the bad stuff in your tank but also lot's of the good stuff in the sandbed as well. So yeah, they'll stir the tank up and set the maturation back some in the process, then eventuall starve once the sandbed has been decimated.

You pretty much told use the problem....you have dead spots with little or no flow. Fix that, don't add something to stir the sand to try and 'fix' another problem. Nassarius are really great to have, much better choise than a sea star. They do tend to eat on meatier food stuffs, like left over mysis, pellets, ect. ect. but won't touch algae. They will stir the sandbed sufficiently too. Only a few would be needed for a small tank like that though.

And definatly increase the flow sufficiently. or arrange the powerheads/current where it'll do the most good.

 

[dave250]

hi, have noticed that at least one of your power heads is facing down ( may be pointing at something specific) however when i had this problen a couple of years ago iwas told to have them where you have them ( on the back left & right ) but higher up so it is creating a slight ripple / disturbing the surface ( not too much though)but pointing at the front glass which then in turn bounces off at different angles also going down the glass over your sand under your rock then up through your rock in turn filtering the water as it passes through the rock and then the cycle starts again ( getting sucked into the power heads). when i implemented this theory it sorted everything out in a couple of days. hope this helps.....your wrasse( 6line) if its the same one iam thinking of we call it a pyjama wrasse and it ate all my turbo snails, i got the wrasse to eat my brissle worms but it must have been more hungrier than i thought.lol....algae on glass i thought every got this to a certain extent ( i hope ) i had it bad once but it was my lights ( need to be renewed very 6 mths, t5) . hope this helps ...

 

[dave250]

nassarius snails are great for stiring the sand ( they are so quick, especialy when they detect food . at night the cover your glass and eat the algae... i also have a horse-shoe crap which are amazing to watch rumaging about in the sand. food for thought just remember nobody is right or wrong in giving advice coz every tank system is individual , if it works stick to it....

 

[Saltwaterstart]

I guess I should update my tank pictures. The powerheads are nowhere near where they are now.

Here are some front, and side pictures, showing the locations of powerheads.

FTS

Right Side

Left Side

I'm definitely going to look into nassarius snails. I'm heading off to the LFS tomorrow because they are having a 20% off sale on softies and LPS polyps. Live Rock is also $4.99/lb Fiji. I wish I could set up another tank, but my mom would kill me (the problem with being 15). I wonder if I could put a fungia coral there to cover it up. Would a fungia be a lower light coral?

I'm going to ignore a sand sifting star, not only because of the research I have done on them, but the fact they get quite large is not good for a nano tank. I also might have to re-aquascape because of the position of the mushrooms in the rock. I have about 40lbs of LR in the tank anyways, so I might need to narrow that down a bit.

Thanks for the info guys and gals!

Also, could anyone tell me what this stuff is?

It's been growing out of control, and I want to know if I can start trading pieces in as frags.

I also own a pair of the most picture friendly clowns I have ever seen. The blenny doesn't come out a lot though.

 

[papagimp]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11582944#post11582944 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dave250
... i also have a horse-shoe crap

These fella's have the same problems as the sand sifting starfish, they get far too large for the typical home aquaria and will starve without the sufficient foods that an extremely large open sandbed can provide. As well as them feeding on everything in the sandbed, not just the bad stuff. Best to leave em in the ocean, or at the LFS. They'll keep getting them in as long as people keep buying them. I would correct your spelling but that's probably a more accurate term for one of these guys, lol. crap.

FWIW, everyone, minimizing pod and micro-infauna eating critters and livestock in the tank will help keep larger populations of sandbed stiring critters. Bristleworms, pods, wormies of all sorts, all the little stuff in our sandbeds WILL and DO stir the sandbeds. In fact, a well stocked and thriving deep sandbed will turn itself over by way of these little bits of microlife in about 2 weeks or so. may seem slow, but that's not neccessarily a bad thing. you don't want to much disturbance in the sandbed. I utilize nothing but cerith snails, nassarius snails and the natural micro infauna to handle all my sandbed needs. Plenty of information to be found here on the subject:

Ron Shimek's Website

hope that helps some.

 

[Saltwaterstart]

Ok, crazy story today.

I went to the LFS today with my dad and my friend for this sale on coral and to pick up snails. It is a beautiful store, those of you in Oakville, Ontario may know what I mean when you stop by the Big Als.

Anyways, apparently, no one knew there was a 20% off sale on corals and frags, so I ended up almost paying full price for the few corals we selected, but were told at the checkout after only purchasing a donut coral. I was a little ticked off, but it was a very nice donut coral. Also, they were very low on stock, and only had turbo snails in stock. I ended up not buying any snails.

My friend was also always bugging me to get a skimmer ever since he got his, because of the cleaning power and algae prevention. My dad went over to the equipment counter, and asked for a Biocube 29 skimmer. He ended up buying a $40 skimmer that is apparently suited and made for the Biocube.

I got home and began to assemble the skimmer after acclimating and placing the coral, and it immediately began to skim, but it was wet skimmate. It wasn't brown, it was actually just the foam turning back into water. I adjusted the air control valves and there is nothing but water turning back into foam. My question is, is there a break-in period for skimmers before they actually start to skim the way they are supposed to?