Pod Question

[Apache58]

OK well im pretty sure thats what those little guys are called, the little creatures you can barely see that are swimming around in there. I just added a few snails and crabs and two sand sifting stars to my tank and with it the water they came in from my LFS. there was a lot of them at first but since my first water change a lot have dissapeared which seems unavoidable but how fast do these things repopulate, am i slowly eliminating them with water changes? and lastly what advantages do they have within a tank?

 

[quarryshark]

two sand sifting stars

There is most likely the reason. They will clean them out in a hurry. Pods will sift your sand which helps keep it clean, plus they are a natural food source for some fish.
Just saw you have a 20 gallon, I would take the stars back to the LFS. They will starve in your system.IMO

 

[tmcpeek]

Sorry to Hijack. I have 2 sandsifting stars in my 225. WIll they starve. I have a 1.5" sand bed and about 400lbs of rock.

 

[quarryshark]

Lets put it this way. I have a similar size tank and had 2. One of them did starve after about a year and my pod population that was once thriving is now almost nothing.
For the sake of my sand bed (and my scooter), I took the other one back.
I would watch your pod population real close.
They were the only stars I had that never took to target feeding.