Cleaning crew

[rennocneb]

Hi i have a 40 gallon reef setup i currently have 4 turbo snails and a coral banded cleaner shrimp in the tank. The rock and glass look great but ive been getting a bit of algae on the sand bed. Is there something good for cleaning this that wont eat corals, fish, snails, my shrimp? Hermits i know love snails but is there another type of crab to look for

 

[aresgod]

get dwarf hermits, they will be fine wont mess with your snails really, you could get some nassirius(sp?) snails they will help stir up the sand bed too, a sand sifting star would help too but that might be too small a tank for them long term

 

[yamahaguy06]

get dwarf hermits, they will be fine wont mess with your snails really, you could get some nassirius(sp?) snails they will help stir up the sand bed too, a sand sifting star would help too but that might be too small a tank for them long term

whats a sand sifting star aresgod?

 

[rennocneb]

dont most stars eat coral

 

[DustinKeating]

Sand sifting stars are really cool, they kinda bury themselves under the very top layer of sand and move along that way. you can still see about 50% randomly, but for the most part they're buried under the sand.

 

[yamahaguy06]

they sound like cool little guys, there not agresive are they

 

[1979camaro]

no, they are peaceful...most stars do not eat coral and other things you want but there are a few out there (chocolate chips among others) so research is very important

 

[dbacksrat]

increased flow in those areas with algae will help--most sand sifting stars need mature several hundred gallon tanks...though the dwarf brittlestars do a bit of sand sifting themselves and are fine to add

 

[aresgod]

1 sand sifter in my opinion shouldnt be a problem in a 90 gallon or more, with DSB....

 

[1979camaro]

i agree with aresgod i have had one in my 55 for 10 months now

 

[aresgod]

yea sometimes depending on your setup you could probably get away with one in a 40 gallon, I had one then cooked him in the move...only thing i lost and it was due to fatigue and human error