How to keep your sand clean???

[chaldofish]

I,ve always had problems with keeping my sand bed clean. I have 10 nassarius snails and 5 hermit crabs in my 55 gallon with about 70 lbs. of live sand. The only thing that kept my sand clean was a sandsifting goby, but i got rid of him because he was sprinkiling sand all over my corals. How does everyone here keep their sand surface clean?? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[suver569]

Nass snails. The stir up the sand be like crazy. I have about 50 in my display.

*cough*

http://www.sdreefs.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5864

[luistwentyone]

I have 50+ snails in my 60 gal tank and they work their butts off !

[lucubrator]

I had an orange diamond goby for a while that was great, it seems that some species are more prone to dropping sand than others. Mine dropped the sand right where it was.

[mojoreason]

Only 10 snails & 5 hermit crabs and a grip of sand? In a 55??

Wow ... what else do you have in there? I have a 55 tall and it's fairly clean with the exception of one area - - but there's a Goby and some conchs that sift through that muck on occassion ... or I just siphon it up ...

I have a mean clown from Chap that regularly stirs up sand around her anemone ... and then the conchs, the snails and many hermit crabs running around seem to clean most of it up.

However, unlike my last reef (a 125 where I thought more sand would be better) - I have very little sand - like less than an inch bed.

[Dannyboy]

If you can count how many hermits you have in a 55gal, you dont have enough.