Sand Sifting Star Q
 

We've been having an on going problem with red slime algae. we've changed everything in our tank.. got new bulbs, increased flow, decreased feeding.. increased water changes and we are still getting slime everywhere. was wondering about a sand sifting star.. we currently have two koralia 3 .. in our 46 g bow front the tank is only about 4 months old. do you think a star would help?
any other suggestions would be appreciated..

Do you have a UV Sterilizer, that helped mine. As well I have 2 Sand star's.

4mo old tank, its normal for this to happen.. keep up with some extra water changes, sipion as much of the slime you can out. and it will go away.

I went through 2 blooms of it in the first 8 months of my tank.

Wait till you have to deal with hair algae, much worse.

may want to cut back on feeding for a bit too...

no we dont have a UV sterilizer.. to be honest im not really sure what that is or what it is used for.
also another question.. i have heard from different sources.. that we shouldnt try to clean our sand.. we siphoned the sand once.. and really tried to clean it up.. and our LFS said we should never disturb the sand like that. so now we just try to clean the top and suck of the algae. What does everyone else do and how often should we be feeding the fish.. to try to get rid of this stuff ?

I would cut back on feeding , increase your flow and get a sand sifter of some sort A sand sifting goby is a good choice as long as you have a fine sand, pluss they are cool fish to watch. With fine sand the sand sifting starfish goes in and you prity much don't see it that often.
I have one but my sand is corse, as to what you would see around a reef on the wild. The sand sifting startfish does get down under the crose sand but seems to like being on top more. When I up grade my tank there will be more fine sand in it for him to call home.

Bill

our sand is fairly coarse as well. we were told to hold off on gobies as our tank wasnt mature enough, at 4 months you think a goby would be ok?
as for our flow we have two koralia 3's.. right now and our protein skimmer. i suppose we could add more.. but it seems like our tank is engulfed with PHs already.

i got my goby when my tank was 2 months old. And moving about quite happily. Just keep your tank covered as they are jumpers.

For sand sifing gobies to do there job the sand has to pass through their gills other wise there is no sense in getting one if you have corse sand. I like the little guys and want one, because I think it would starve in my tank because it can't sift the sand for it food. It could take in fod directly through it mouth but main corse of food should come from the sand. I read a some thing in a book once about this specific fish need specific foods some time to thrive in a aquarium.
As for the flow try changing the angle the koralia 3's are pointing that may help. Red slime algae and diatoms don't thrive in high flow tanks, you should just try and play with the angle the koralias are pointing. suck up as much as you can before changing the angles first.
Bill

I'm gonna guess your talking about mandarin dragonets, sometimes called mandarin gobies. They specifically eat copepods. You can train them to eat frozen stuff, but it's almost impossible to do so.

In my little experience i think they are called orange spot gobies. I just bought one (my tank is going on four months) and he has completely sifted all of my sand and is loving life. He will eat frozen food as well as anything that is in the sand. My sand has never been whiter.

mandarin gobies are a whole different story all together

do you have coarse sand ryan.. or pretty fine?

I have a sand sifting gobie in my 72 as I put rock in first then sand, my other tank has the rock on top of the sand so probably not a good idea to put one in it. (May crush him)
I do have a sandsifting seastar in my 95 and honestly I think it does nothing to the top of the sand but I could be wrong :biggrin:

No I am not talking about a mandarin gobie I am talking about a sand sifting gobie like a golden head gobie. They get their food from the sand and need fine sand as it must pass through it's gills for it to be able to sift the sand. My new tank will have fiji pink sand in it quite a bit finer just pick some up for the top 1 inch coat.

Bill

Yea, my sand is rather fine. I have a sand sifting starfish as well as the goby but the sf seems to just mull about. The goby does all the work.

Maybe your start is finding enough food at the surface level of your tank rether than having to forage for it a bit by going beneath the surface level. even my Sand sifter star fish will on ocasion burry its self in my corse sand. I know it will be diving in the fine sand fiji pink is not as fine as sugar sand but it is deffinitly way finer than what I have right now. Other than what you have you can increase flow and cut back on the amount you feed the fish. This may also get the sand sifting star to move in to the sandbed and forage for food more.

Myself I don't use a uv sterilizer but I am shoping for one that can help with algea that is in the water colume, kills parisites and also good and bad bacteria if you have flatworms it will kill any that pass through the UV unit and that goes for atapsia and mojano spors also. I siphon my sand as a part of my maintance so 7 to 14 days, you may loss some good stuff but it will come back. It will stop the sand from caking and suficating the layer below which is a good thing your biological filter is throughout your sand bed and if it suficates you nitrites can rocket as the biological matter decomposes so you phosfates will also go up and you get a algea bloom of some sort and that can be part of what is happening to you when you clean the top layer you alow the biological filtering to become reistablish but then the sand cakes again and you are back where you started. changing the water flow so it disturbs the sand a bit helps to keep it from caking. You want very little water droplets inbetweenthe sand particals if it cakes these water particals are not there and the sand bed suficates. I think I'll make a educated guess that you don't have to much algea on the rocks but more so on the sand where the decomposing of the sandbed is taking place.

To fix things you can't just mix it up siphon up the red algea and after that siphon the sand bed get as much of the ditris out as you can. Scrape the algea off your glass below the sand bed level, it will come back a bit in time but just do a good cleaning. You will have to make siphoning a part of the reguler cleaning.

It only takes a bit of work, try it it will work, the sand sifting star will like it; also the gobie will too.

I hope this helps,
Bill

i had a huge red slime problem at one point and pulled it off the sand bed in sheets, got a sand sifting star and that did help, it turned over the sand enough that new stuff couldn't get a foothold but it ate too much of the living stuff in there (worms and pods) so i sold it and got a strawberry conch and my tank is still slime free plus his eyes are really cool, he watches me watch him and his name is Gary after spongebobs pet

If your tank is only 4 months old a starfish or sand sifter goby most likely will starve to death. Cut back on feeding a bit. New tanks often have little blooms. Just keep up on your maintenance and it will go away.

I think a sand sifter or a gobie would stave to death I added my sand sifter and it is doing very well it is active. It just does not like the corse sand I have lots of worms and co pods some of te co pods are huge I thought one was a medium size crab but when I finaly located it again it was just a co pod. My skooter blemie would have staved long before it jumped into the carpet anemone to get eaten. I did do things a bit differentthan most just from experience though. my tank is a bit over 4 months and doing great. I only add one thing at a time QT everything some times I will transfer a fish a bit early depending on how it is doing in the QT. If no sign of any thing I will cut QT down to 2 weeks if I used meds if not 3 weeks. I add no more than 2 coral frags at any time if I get more they go into the QT tank if vacant or into my Kids tank for a week or more depending. Coriline algea is growing like crazy some times and slower other times. I had 1 incident because the flme angle was getting stressed out in the little QT and was not showing any signs of problems so I use a general aid then introduced him into the DT bad me. I wound up lossing him in the end it just took to long to catch him inthe DT. everyones tank is different and I would not have a sand sifting starshish ans a sand sifting gobie in a young tank then they would starve.

Bill

What fish do you have in the tanK?