Your favoirte detritivores

man I dont know- I have tons of mini stars, snails, b/r legged crabs, and you name it- sounds like your tank is kinda new, deal with the algae for a while, maybe add additional cuc's and soon you will be able to turn on the atinics in the morning and see the walls of your tank taken over by critters you didnt know you had. water quality/water changes plays a huge role in this working the way it could- if you follow the correct path of reef keeping.

 

My CUC consists of: serpent starfish, zebra hermits, emerald crabs, sea cucumber(awesome!!!), turbo snails, bumble bee snails, Nassarius Snails, and my fish, such as my Sailfin, and YWG. I have Halloween hermits in another tank, but no fish in it due to the fact that they attack small fish. Plus, my Coral Banded Shrimp, and bristle worms, are great scavengers, too.

 

it depends what kind of detritus you are talking about, is it all over the sand bed? jus 1 area, on the rocks? for me i had 1 area in the tank collecting "dust" i added a small powerhead (koralia 2) just to stir water and solved my problem. brittle starfish are good cleaners but they tend to pick a spot and never move (at least mine is this way)

 

I am pretty sure that it is mostly a type of algae. because its collecting on my cheato in the sump. My NO3 were super high. The tank is only 7 months, but because I used all DIY base rock, and didnt seed it with enough cured rock. My rock is taking a long time to cure. And because it was DIY I didnt get any hitchhikers. I know flow is an issues in the back of the tank, and I tweaking the front ph to get them to blow the sand top but not dig sand traps in the bed... so i know where all the problems are and how to fix them, I was just curios as to what works for everyone else, organism wise ( to be honest I am itching to add something other then snails)

 

other than snails.... you have a reef tank? there are some cucumbers that you could get. Or slugs. Or maybe a lettice nudi. Also, many blennies and tangs are great algae eaters. Or, if you were willing to scratch off some coralline, maybe, theres always the toothbrush and bucket of water. If the problem is in the substrate, i'd go with sea cucumbers. Then Nassarius snails to maintain it.

 

the small spinned ones like pincushion urchins, like the blue tuxedo.

 

Pic please I have never seen one.

 

Try google. Whenever I walk near my tank, it recoils in its shell. I guess it hasn't gotten used to me yet.

 

IMO....Brittle stars and Diamond watchman gobys are the two best sand cleaners. During the day and some of the night the goby moves some serious sand!

At night the Stars come out! lol Not only will it clean the sand but also cleans the rockwork as it moves about. The Green Brittle Stars have been known to eat small slow moving fish and some inverts.

I have a single Pincusion urchin in my tank and dont get me wrong it is a very pretty and odd creature but it reeks more havock in my tank than anything else! The thing is evil! lol jk But it will pick up anything it can carry and move it about, aswell as eating unwanted algae it also eats wanted algae such as corraline and as it does this it picks a very thin layer of rock aswell, this can be a good thing long term because it promotes new growth on your rock but can also turn your sandbed into a mini rock bed.

With your tank having so much detritus in it I would steer away from the Slugs and cucumbers atm. Such high nitrates from detritus can kill sensitive species and if these one of these two die.....Nuke.... After your tank has established better you could try one of them. My tank is just over 7 months and I am still scared of them.

Hope this helps! ;D