Best Sand Stirrer for a Nano?

[RLiu818]

I have a 10 gallon and after i remove my blue legs I am planning to replace them with some sand stirrers.


Should I got with Cerith or Nassarius snails or what else is there that you recommend?

A conch i believe would be too big for my 10 gallon nano.

 

[reefland]

In my 10 gallon nano, I have a handful of Nassarius, a tiny black cuke (about 2 inches), and a banded brittle star. Between them the sand stays pretty clean.

 

[brandon4291]

I for one would love to see a picture of your nano aquarium on your site!

That is one of the nicest, most elaborate personal websites Ive seen btw.


brandon429

 

[reefland]

It's not worth posting pictures of yet. I'm trying to do a low light tank. Not many corals are low light with a resonable chance of success. Here are a few pictures of my black sun coral:

http://users.rcn.com/reefland/reef/blacksunpolyp01.jpg
http://users.rcn.com/reefland/reef/blacksunpolyp02.jpg
http://users.rcn.com/reefland/reef/blacksunpolyp03.jpg

This coral is doing very well with frequent manual feedings.

 

[Anonymous]

Nassarius snails are awesome, they have no "down side"

 

[reefland]

Nassarius snails are awesome, they have no "down side"

Well.. they need to be fed. The won't be eating algae. And they lack that door flapper thingy that other snails have. They will be easy snacks for shrimp if they get hungry.

 

[MattM]

...And they lack that door flapper thingy that other snails have...

operculum (noun) - 1. a hard flap serving as a cover for (a) the gill slits in fishes or (b) the opening of the shell in certain gastropods when the body is retracted.

 

[brandon4291]

I had actually purchased a small sand-sifting star for my reefbowl but decided against it because if the animal were to ever die for any reason, it would wreck my small tank quickly as its unskimmed.

Also, if it burrows under my rockwork it may dislodge it or cause a shift--this animal it seems would be quite hardy and fine for a ten gallon but not for a one gallon. The bioload was not my concern, there is enough live rock and circulation in my pico to quickly nitrify the wastes from a small echinoderm--I just never wanted to have to tear my rockwork apart to dig it out in the future. This is also why I never bought small brittle stars either.

Small crabs stir the upper layers of sand, but there are claims the decimate small fauna such as serupulid or sabellid worms.

I have a small boxer crab who does not seem to do this, and he readily picks through dinoflagellate layers on the bed to keep them from building up. For your size system, Id vote for a small sand sifting star (gen/sp?)

HTH
Brandon

 

[wombat1]

Sand stirring stars eat infauna also. I like nassaurius, and my cleaner shrimps have never touched them. You probably only need one or two in a tank that small.

 

[brandon4291]

My store had a two inch bright red linkia the other day, just missed it. From what I can tell they would scavenge well and accept some additional small feedings--would have bought that one. It was the most awesome star Ive ever seen... hopefully more luck next time. Eventually it would have to be traded for coral in some way because a linkia would grow too large in a small nano, but it had at least 6-8 months before that time. It was tiny