Substrate cleaner

[Harley Fish]

HI i was wonder ing the best thing i could get to clean my subrtrate. i have noticed its getting a bit minging.

just hermits and some nasurus snails??

 

[joshkennedy07]

Depends on the depth. If you have less than an inch, stir it; if its 1-3" use may have to use one of those gravel vacuums; if its 3+ just stir the top 1/2". Of course some hermits or snails will help keep it fairly clean, but you'll still have to occasionally clean or stir the sand.

 

[stingythingy45]

Nassarius snails definitely make a difference.
I tried a Diamond goby,made one heck of a mess til it jumped out one night.

 

[reefworm]

nassarius and/or cerith snails, plus a good population of bristleworms which you likely have already. if you have a sandbed I would advise against vacuuming. you'll remove infauna that are helping with your bio-filtration and detritus clean up

 

[alextheromanian]

Re: Substrate cleaner

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12982027#post12982027 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Harley Fish
HI i was wonder ing the best thing i could get to clean my subrtrate. i have noticed its getting a bit minging.

just hermits and some nasurus snails??

i had the same prob with my 75 gal...substrate always got dark and nasty.


a yellowhead goby...alone keeps the WHOLE tanks substrate clean.


only downside is i had to make sure the substrate was bigger pieces than his mouth because he would spit out sand from his mouth onto the rocks. now he just bites the sand eats and spits right back out instead of taking a mouthfull and swimming away spraying sand everywhere.

 

[reefworm]

a substrate composed only of large pieces will not support enough benthic life - essential for cleanup, and has a smaller overall surface area to support large nitrifying bacterial populations. for both those reasons sand is the better way to go, thus the snails