Sand sifting problem?

[MrCote]

I just bought a sand sifting diamond goby, and its digging through ALL my sand. making mounds everywhere and its doing a great job (and its pretty cool to watch) but its kicking up tons of stuff. I also have a dozen nessarius snails in my tank and a sand sifting conch. Its a 55 gallon tank and I have mostly LPS corals, some softies and an RBTA. My sand bed is roughly 1.5" thick some places thicker and some thinner.

But ever since I got the goby my tank is ALWAYS cloudy from it kicking up particles of whatver in the sand bed and now green film algae grows like crazy. To the point where i have to clean my glass 2-3 times a day. When usually i need to clean it once every 3 or 4 days.

So my questions are:
1. eventually will there be no particles left to be kicked up in the sand bed from my tank overflow collecting it and putting it in my skimmer and sock? or is this something i have to deal with all the time from now on

2. Is the green film algae directly related to the sand being kicked up?

3. Are my corals and RBTA in danger?

4. should I start siphoning my sand bed when i do water changes or is this not necessary because of my sand sifting CUC?

-Thanks,
Tom

 

[arch85]

I could be very very wrong, but just guessing -- because of all the sand "sifting" that your goby is doing, your nitrates might be going up -- because of which, algae might be starting to bloom.

If I were to guess (again), I'd say it should stop in a month of two once all your "top level" sand has already been sifted ... but that's about all this post of mine is .. a guess

And I'd test the water -- if nitrates are going up, do a water change... try to siphon water from the bottom of the tank to pick up the worst quality water ...

 

[twiddledog]

I had one and it never stopped making a mess until I got rid of it!

 

[Dashiki]

Mine too. Always a dust storm.

 

[MrCote]

how long did you have it and what size tank?

 

[stingythingy45]

If you can,catch it.If you can't then it will most likely starve in a 55 gallon tank.
Not enough food in the sand bed to sustain it.And even if it eats mysis it doesn't have the correct diet that microscopic crustations have.
But,there is hope,if you don't have a top on the tank they're known to carpet dive.
I know,been there.......done that.I wound never recommend getting one of these,no matter how well they might clean the sand.

 

[Dashiki]

4 months and ~4.5"

I had to take my filter socks off because of all the silt the clogged everyday.

It was cute at first but I was happy to see him leave. I'll never buy another one.

 

[MrCote]

crap... yet another fish for me to try and catch... so how can i catch this guy?

 

[danzig]

You can try a soda bottle fish trap google it its easy.



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