Sand Sifting Star Q

[marknash]

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..

[The Grizz]

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

[toxic111]

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...

[marknash]

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 ?

Originally Posted by marknash

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 ?

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

[Eyford01]

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

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

[marknash]

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.

[Bloodasp]

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