DIRTY sand HELP PLEASE!!!!

[supermarvin76]

I changed my CC to sand 2 weeks ago. I am not very happy so far. My sand is EXTREAMLY dirty with poop and other left overs. I dont feed very heavily. I have about 15 hermit carbs. When ever my orange spotted goby sifts in the sand (which he is continously doing) he makes a huge mess. I am very frustrated. I have a skimmer box, with one power head in the tank.

 

[quarryshark]

Have any snails? Nassarius and or cerith? They will help clean it up some.
How much circulation do you have?

 

[malkore]

one powerhead doesn't sound like much, even counting the gph from your return pump (on the fuge).

 

[supermarvin76]

Thanks for the tips so far......Think I need more circulation? What will that do? wont it just blow the pieces around more. I already have pieces of it being blown in the water. I just about 30min ago got done with a 9-10 gallon water change to no avail. I have about 10 or 11 snails. They stay mostly on the rocks, and come to think of it, I dont think I have ever seen them in the sand. My frustration is growing..........

 

[EJS4]

What type of snails? Turbos don't leave glass or rocks.
As quarryshark said you need nassarius or cerith

 

[JG]

I would order a large shipment ( 50+ ) of nassarius snails. Many sources recommend about 1 snail per gallon. These little guys are great. They will actually bury themselves in the sand and pop out at feeding time. They will also clean the glass at night then go back to the sand during the day.

There are a couple of sellers on e-bay who sell them at a very reasonable price. I over-ordered understanding that there would be a certain amount of die off, but that even if 50% died during shipping, I would still have paid less than a pet store. ( 100 snails for $30). The fellow actually shipped me 135 snail and I estimated about 90-100 survived.

 

[supermarvin76]

Will Nassarius snails clean the debris from the sand?

 

[malkore]

They will help keep your sand bed stirred up, getting the debris down into the sand so the anerobic bacteria there can break it down.

A sand sifting starfish might be good too if you don't already have one.

 

[supermarvin76]

I just added a maxi jst 600 power head with a sponge attached to it. I now have that, along with an aqua clear 30 with a sponge that I rigged to that as well. I plan to clean the sponges atlease once a week. ( I have BIG particles floating in the water.) Once the water is to my liking, I plan to take the sponges off the power heads all togther. Thoughts???

 

[JG]

Leave the sponges on if you have or plan to have anemones.

 

[supermarvin76]

So far it doesn't look like the sponges are doing much good. It doesn't look like any chunks are getting caught in the sponges. Rather the chunks just continue to blow around the tank. I don't know what to do!!!!

 

[AR15 guy]

My turbos ocassionally go across the sand but not often. They haven't done a whole lot of anything lately. They haven't even been keeping my class clean. I had to get one of those magnetic algea scrubbers because the algea was overtaking the glass.

I think I need to supplement with dried seaweed. I have lost a couple lately and I am wondering if they are starving. I used tap water and algea started growing a lot. After awhile it slowed down. Now that I have been topping off with distilled it seems to have gone away.

I may get rid of the snails. They are pretty boring. I definetly want to keep some blue leg hermits in there though.

 

[supermarvin76]

I just ordered 100 nassarius snails. I hope they do a good job.