Who's your favourite (or not) sand sifter ?

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by intarsiabox

My diamond (aka orange spot) goby does an amazing job. Unlike a dragon goby I once had he just stays at the bottom of the tank to sift sand rather than swimming up in water column and spitting it everywhere. I've never had a problem with this one covering corals with sand.

Yeah, same with mine. They only move the sand on the bottom, and make little holes and mounds. Any coral on the sand could get covered, but not on the live rock. Having said that I have some mushrooms growing down on the sand, and they seem to always get uncovered on their own. One thing that is important, though, is that your live rock is sitting on the glass bottom, not on the sand, which would be undermined and cause shifting.

I should mention too, that my sand is the larger coral rubble type, not the fine sugar sand.

[FWC]

I love my diamond watchman goby. She keeps the sand super clean and is quite a personable fish.

That being said I wouldn't mind if he did stop moving all the sand into the middle of the tank...

[mike31154]

My arm, hand & a siphon tube are my favourite sand sifting critters. I stir things up a bit when I do water changes. Since I don't have a sump, that's a regular routine in the display every 20 days or so.

[reefgirl189]

I bought 3 sand sifting starfish because everyone was sold out of fighting conch and so far my opinion of them is that they are useless.

I have a nassarius (sp?) snail in the 180 somewhere. Haven't seen him in over a month now because he's always in the sand sifting away.

I'd love to find a goby. I think that'll be my next addition based on other's opinions of them.

[Coralgurl]

I have a orange diamond goby, sand snails and a sand star. By far the goby does the most, he never stops sifting. The only issue I have with him is where he has decided to sleep, he buries the hole during the day and kicks the sand out at night. I have a mini nem and a mushroom on that rock, the nem seems ok but the mushroom relocated as it was constantly under sand. I can't keep any corals in front of that rock but I'm ok with that. He doesn't kick up sand anywhere and IMO was the best addition for keeping the sand clean.

[Reef Pilot]

In my other display tank, I have 2 fighting conch, and used to have a tiger conch, but he died. They move around a bit, but don't do much to clean the sand that I can see. Keeps my Copperband interested, as he tries to pick under their shells. Not sure if he is looking for food there, or trying to get at the snail itself. Not sure why the tiger conch died (might have been the Copperband bothering him), but he didn't move for a couple days, and when I picked him up, it was a really bad stench, so I knew he was dead.

But for sure, my gobies in my other tank, do a much better job of keeping the sand looking clean and fresh.

[Snufflupagus]

I have a sand star and a silver dollar in my 150, they seem to do a fair job.