what to buy for sifting sand?

The nassarius snails I have burrow all the time Almost every other day I see them and they are always moving. I think most people think they don't move allot cause they don't watch there tanks at night. I see mine at night allot. They are also never in the same place for more then a day.

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinions. I love me some nassarius snails... LOL....

 

I have ceriths also and aren't really impressed with their work on the sand. I think they are a vital part of my cleanup crew (I just bought another 24 of them this past week) but not my most important sand sifting snail. Like mentioned above my nassarius work a lot at night and I believe do a good job. The key is diversity in your cleanup crew.

 

The fact remains that Nassarius snails are not nearly as effective as Cerith snails in sifting sand. Its not my perosnal opinion, its a well observed fact.

In fact Nassarius snails don't sift sand. They glide on sand moving from one place to the other looking for food, then they stop in one place and burrow themselves in that spot with their antenna sticking out. They are not sifting sand, they simply scavenging. When they glide the sand doesnt move a bit. The only time they move the sandbed is when they go in and out of the sand and they do this once or twice a day not all the time.

Florida cerith are by far the best sifters i've ever seen.

 

Florida Ceriths

 

ceriths I have seen are not that big and never seen any ceriths burrowing like a nassarius I do think they do great algae clean up though. But bm said it best varity will get the job done better.

 

well put diversity is the key.....

 

I have never seen my ceriths burrow so this is just my personal opinion/observation. Variety is the spice of life though . Just like everything else in this hobby if 1 person tells you something there will defintely be someone else that says the opposite. Just do some research and make an educated decision from there. Good luck with your crew!

 

They constantly burrow in my tank.

Not true. If you say that reef tanks benifit from using RO/DI water, no one is going to say that its actually harmful to use RO/DI water.




Now i just took some pictures of Florida Ceriths and Dwarf Caribbean ceriths.

The black ones are Dawrfs and the bigger grey/green ones are Florida.

You can clearly see them going in and out of the sand. I don't have picture of them all the way in the sand, because you would just see sand lol

In the 4th picture you can see where the Florida cerith just came out of the sand, and in the 5th picture one is about to go in. Also in pics 1 and 2 you can see them going in and out.

Picture 6 Dwarf cerith riding on the FLorida cerith lol

Picture 7 Florida cerith just came out

 

I agree on the Cerith Snails.. As soon as you put them in the will start to burrow in..really cool. I would go with atleast 10 of these which is suggested for a 30 to 50 gal tank.