conch??

[Reef Pilot]

A few months ago, I bought 2 fighting conches and 1 tiger (maybe spider) conch. All were totally useless, for cleaning sand and algae. The tiger one died after a month or so (what a stink), and the other 2 keeping hiding in the back and getting caught in the live rock. I keep fearing another one will die, so have to keep fishing them out from behind. I wish they would now, so I can get rid of them.

[StirCrazy]

fighting conch is the one to get, but remember they need about 2 to 4 square feet of sand bed each. alot of the other conchs you see are realy welks and are preditory or do more patroling of the rocks than the sand. I had two for about 3 years, don't expect anything fast but they will clean the sand eventualy. they do hide a lot and come out mostly at night, if you sand isn't deep enough they will tend to squeeze under rocks as they like to be able to totaly burry themselves during the day.

Steve

[TimT]

I have Orange Lip Conch in my system and they do fine. They are a good conch and don't get too large(3").

For cleaning your sand the best thing is a Tiger Tail Sea Cucumber or a Pink Belly Sea Cucumber. They process the sand just like an earthworm does the soil.

Cheers,
Tim