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rcg49
06/09/2011, 09:50 PM
Hello everyone!

I always see pictures of beautiful brain coral, feather dusters, and anemones that live in the sand and my question is how do they keep their sand clean?! Right now I clean the top layer of my sand/gravel every major water change with a gravel vacuum. I would be afraid that if I used a gravel vacuum with a sand anemone I would get it all over him : O
So do they just have a lot of hermit crabs and sand sifting starfish or what?

MedRed
06/09/2011, 09:59 PM
Two fighting conchs in my tank do the trick.

dorky
06/09/2011, 11:08 PM
One sand shifting goby in my tank did the trick. He got a bad case of ocd cant stand anything tht look dirty. lol

Toddrtrex
06/09/2011, 11:31 PM
I have had, at least one, sand bed dwelling anemone for the last 13 years. During that time I have been using a gravel vac to keep my sandbed (( shallow )) clean with each weekly water change. Of course I don't dump sand on the anemone(s), but I am not worried about it either.

S. Haddonis can/will fully retract into the sandbed, so they are capable of dealing with a little sand during a water change.

To show how much they can retract...

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/toddrtrex/HiddenHaddoni5.jpg

Gone...

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/toddrtrex/hiddenhaddoni.jpg

kellerexpress
06/09/2011, 11:55 PM
+1 to the fighting conch

elegance coral
06/10/2011, 06:32 AM
I'm with Todd on this. I have a large haddoni, and I vacuum my sand, all the way to the bottom, with a gravel vac, when I do water changes.