Any suggestions on substrate cleaners?

[nstiesi]

I have been a bit inactive lately, mainly due to moving 300 miles, and having to take two tanks with me. (my old 20 reef was posted here First thread here, first salt tank ). My cichlids pulled through just fine, but I lost more than half of my rock due to space issues (I didn't have enough buckets, and it dried out, so its all re-curing), and the rock and sand in the buckets were agitated enough to cause a bit of an ammonia spike. Only survivors are my tomato clown, two small zoa colonys, and one single nassarius snail.......my brittle star, nassarius and astrea snails all died. All of the agitation was also due to my plastic sump for the cichlids breaking in the move, so the current salt tank needed to be converted into the new sump, and I moved the reef occupants to a new 29 tank a few months ahead of schedule.

Everything has seemed to settle out, but I am having one real problem....I CANNOT keep the sand clean. There is coralline, diatoms (which I know will go away on their own if I do things right), and just plain DIRT and nastyness on the sand bed. The question: What critters would be the most effective for maintaining the top of the sand? This has been a problem for me, even in the old tank, in which I had 10 nass snails, 8 astreas, and the brittle star.

What other types of CUC members should I look into? How effective are other types of starfish at this job. Thanks all!

Nick

[AdvanceAquatics]

I like to hear other suggestions as well

[framerguy]

I think Cerith snails are some of the safest, most efficient and effective cleaners for a reef tank. They clean the top of the sand as well as underneath. Stomatellas are probably the best for the other areas but are hard to come by. Those are my recommendations. 1 per 5 gallons to start and see if you need more later.

[lcstorc]

Nassarius and cerith here. Fighting conchs are great too.

[reefsmoker]

Originally Posted by lcstorc

Fighting conchs are great too.

Oh how i want one of those, i think he'd be too crowded in my 29.

[lcstorc]

You can get a small one and give it back to the LFS when it gets bigger. Just make sure the LFS will take it back first.

[DAHansen]

This may be an odd recommendation, but I have been wicked happy with my Pistol Shrimp/Goby pair (I actually have two... pairs... I think... haven't seen the Yasa Hashe for a couple days).

Anyway, the pistol shrimp keep rotating my sand around. I DO have a shallow sand-bed so I don't have to worry about them stirring up anything nasty. My sand has never looked cleaner - particularly in the slow flow areas.