Dirty Sand Bed Help!!

[ChiTownRomeo]

Is there anything I can put in my 55 gallon reef that will eat detritus!! I have Astrea snails and omg they poop like mad!! I added blue legged hermits, red legged and scarlet hermits and nothing. I added a fighting Conch and he doesn't eat anything. HELP!!!

[ivan_dalmatia]

Do you have any corals? You may be able to put in a cowrie if you DONT

[ChiTownRomeo]

Originally Posted by Ivanthegod

Do you have any corals? You may be able to put in a cowrie if you DONT

torch, Hammer and frog spawn and a few duncans.

[ivan_dalmatia]

Ya dont do the cowrie! Wheres your water at (parameters) , and what type of lighting do you have and how do you use it (hrs. per day?)

[Bectan01]

I have two conchs that keep the sand bed clean in my 55. How bad is it? Pics? I would be checking the source too, how much are you feeding?

[mr_X]

Increase flow. Don't allow detritus to settle in the first place.

[erichm20]

Nassarius snails will eat detritus and you can have quite a few of them. But they will produce some waste as well so you have to be diligent about export with water changes you can syphon it out.

[Crystal A]

Nassarius snails are carnivors. They don't eat poop. I agree with Mr X increase your flow so it dosent settle or try a simple turkey baster to blast it every couple of days and get it in the water column.

[erichm20]

"overview
The Nassarius Snail is a little snail with a big appetite. This hungry critter glides through your aquarium foraging for food. The Nassarius Snail is an efficient scavenger and detritus eater and is the perfect member of your reef aquarium cleanup crew. You will be pleased at how quickly a small group of Nassarius Snails will clear detritus, uneaten food, decaying organics, and fish waste."

This was taken straight from liveaquaria and is one of several sources that say they consume fish waste and decaying organics.

[Crystal A]

Hmm maybe they do I have always known them to be carnivores. Will do a google search as well.

[Crystal A]

Diet and Feeding : Nassarius snails are carnivores scavengers in their eating style and will eat almost any decaying organic material in the tank but they do not eat algae. As such, supplemental feeding for them is normally not needed. However, if there is not enough food in the tank, their diet can be supplement with small meaty seafood such as brine shrimp, mysids, roe, fish, shellfish or crustacean meat.

[Crystal A]

The Nassarius Snail is a great scavenger that will eat various kind of organic material such as fish waste, leftover foods and even dying or death fish, making it a beneficial addition to your tank. Another benefit of having these snails in your tank is that they will also help to aerate the sandy substrate of your tank as they sift through the substrate while searching for food. This action also helps to reduce the growth of slime algae or cyanobacteria on the substrate surface. They also have the habit of burying their whole shell in the substrate, with only siphon protruding above the substrate. This siphon is used to sense the presence of food. They will move quickly, often as a group towards the food source once food is detected.


It would appear we are both right. I think that they are some of the neatest inhabitants in a saltwater tank and are really the one thing that got me into the saltwater side of things after watching them popp out of the sand in my brothers tank.

To the op I hope the info helps you with your dirty sand and of course more flow will help as well.

[erichm20]

yea I guess they will eat everything except algae so it's good to have a mix. I am in the camp though that adding any living thing will add nutrients that feed the crap (pun intended) we dont want so youre ****ed if you do youre ****ed if u dont.

I also agree with you and x on an abundance of flow and I'm currently at 28x but I want to add more and get it up around 40-45x.

[mr_X]

I disagree with the popular belief that nassarius snails will eat detritus. Some of that stuff is just copied and pasted from website to website and is incorrect. You will only see them when you feed the tank, detritus covered sand bed or not. They won't come out when a fish craps and it hits the sand. Manual removal and increasing flow would be my suggestion.

[ivan_dalmatia]

Originally Posted by mr_X

I disagree with the popular belief that nassarius snails will eat detritus. Some of that stuff is just copied and pasted from website to website and is incorrect. You will only see them when you feed the tank, detritus covered sand bed or not. They won't come out when a fish craps and it hits the sand. Manual removal and increasing flow would be my suggestion.

I agree with mrX, i have over 50 of them, soon as they smell garlic mixed with food- you can probably count more than a 100 lol

[Crystal A]

Ya X you do have good point there and it's funny you say copied and pasted cause that's exactly what I did! Copied and pasted from a website. Lol they are neat little creatures.

[Gregcoyote]

Only some marine worms process detritus and it just goes in one end and out the other.

[erichm20]

Originally Posted by mr_X

I disagree with the popular belief that nassarius snails will eat detritus. Some of that stuff is just copied and pasted from website to website and is incorrect. You will only see them when you feed the tank, detritus covered sand bed or not. They won't come out when a fish craps and it hits the sand. Manual removal and increasing flow would be my suggestion.

Yea but it's on the Internet and they can't put anything that isn't true on the Internet...

[Kristy3693]

Yea but it's on the Internet and they can't put anything that isn't true on the Internet...[/QUOTE]

Hahaha!