Sand movers.

[Kirbyyy]

I have a 10gal sand freshwater tank with a small school of cardinal tetras. I'm thinking the sand will get quite dirty and build up air pockets in which some nasty bacteria can grow as you know, I'm looking for something like a crab to clean the surface of the sand, as well as maybe something like the freshwater variant of a scooter blenny to churn up the sand to make sure these pockets don't form, and if they do are delt with quickly. Any suggestions on which crab/fish I should get that would deal with the tetra's environment would be very helpful thanks a ton :]

 

[Newman]

shrimp and mini cories are your best bet. theyre the only things that will survive in a ten gallon. gobies wont have a good time and neither will crabs (most of which are brackish)

 

[kenny1tothe6]

Malaysian Trumpet Snails?

Also, plant roots keep sand from going anaerobic.

 

[Kirbyyy]

The trumpet snails seem to be great! The only problem I may have is the site I read about them said they were used for gravel tanks, now I can't imagine sand would pose an issue, but I may be wrong.

 

[Newman]

yea snails that like to burrow in substrate are a good choice.

 

[kenny1tothe6]

Kirbyyy, I used/use them in both sand & gravel tanks, and they are my little charms. Sucks 75% of my colony is gone from the betta in my avatar eating them.

 

[RexyTexel]

I love trumpet snails. They're the best when it comes to churning the gravel/sand. Just be sure you don't let their populating get out of hand. I had one large one and soon ended up with about 30 babies in one week.

 

[JRB__]

I have a 10gal sand freshwater tank with a small school of cardinal tetras. I'm thinking the sand will get quite dirty and build up air pockets in which some nasty bacteria can grow as you know, I'm looking for something like a crab to clean the surface of the sand, as well as maybe something like the freshwater variant of a scooter blenny to churn up the sand to make sure these pockets don't form, and if they do are delt with quickly. Any suggestions on which crab/fish I should get that would deal with the tetra's environment would be very helpful thanks a ton :]

Call me crazy but I think a regular gravel vacuum, like one a week should be sufficient. Air pockets shouldn't exist after the first 2 or so vacuum's and once they are gone shouldn't return. If you want something to take care of the surface of the sand, I agree with newman, cory's are your best bet with a 10g. (maybe a small group of pygmy cory's?)

 

[anshuman]

my goldies keep grazing on the sand (for hours sometimes), turning everything upside down , i thought that was v v bad thing, reading this makes me okay now. i wont looking angrily at them now when they do that (specially after feeding).

 

[anshuman]

Also , i have seen my apple snail get on the sand too, must be eating things.

 

[Newman]

ok so snails that burrow, small cories, shrimp, and manually stirring your sand will all work with this set up. IDK what kind of gravel vac wont suck up all the sand, but if you can find something like that use it like JRB said

 

[JRB__]

....IDK what kind of gravel vac wont suck up all the sand, but if you can find something like that use it like JRB said

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the question, I thought the question was what'll churn up the sand, my gravel vac does exactly that... isn't that what its designed to do? just push the plastic funnel thats connected to the hose into the sand it'll start to pull it up, yeh if you let it keep going it'll suck it into the hose and out of the tank but all you do is raise it and the sand returns to the bottom, churned up... atleast I thought??

 

[Doomhed]

Kirbyyy, I used/use them in both sand & gravel tanks, and they are my little charms. Sucks 75% of my colony is gone from the betta in my avatar eating them.

I used to breed mystery snails just so I could feed them to my oscars. The oscars LOVED them, and they were essentially free.

 

[Newman]

guess youre right JRB bout the sand vac. but you gotta do that carefully