clean up crew
 

I'm having some trouble kepping my sand bed clean. need some advice as to what my clean up crew should consist of... i have a 56 gallon colum tank so the tank is not as long as the normal 55 gallon, my sand is about 1 1/2 to 2 inches deep. Tank has been set up now about a year and a half and all my snails seem to disapear. Now i have 5 scarlet hermit crabs a conch about 4 nassarius and some other randm snails. Thanx in advance for your help!!

Before you get to what to add, do you monitor your water frequently. There's got to be a reason why your snails "disappear" and that ought to be looked into before you spend your money on additional cleanup inverts.

You might want to consider a sea cucumber and a brittle star. I've got 2 cucumbers and 2 brittle stars in my 115 gal reef tank and they do a nice job of keeping my sand bed clean.

i believe my coral banded is the reason they dissapear, i do have a brittle star. should i get a new shrimp maybe?? i do monitor my water frequently 15% water changees about every three weeks, my ph has been pretty low the last few weeks around 7.5 cant seem to keep it up did 3 water changes one every 3 days is at about 7.8 now during the day.all of my corals are fine so i dot think ph is my problem water ch,stry is usually very good so maybe it is time to say bye to the corl banded....

7.5 is rather low...significantly low, and can be the reason for mortality porblems. I'd suspect that before I'd blame the Coralbanded Shrimp for the snail deaths. Getting a second Coralbanded Shrimp and having that in the same tank is definitely not a good idea.

15% water changes every three weeks isn't all that frequent and that might be something you should do more often...at least every two weeks.

What's the pH of the source water that you use for your water changes?

i use tap water i wil haveto check the ph on vacation right now so i will do that when i get home thank you forthe advice much appreciated

I would get rid of the coral banded shrimp and replace it with a cleaner or peppermint shrimp. Check your water parameters often, stick to a regimen of doing water changes and for the sand I would get cerith snails, they do wonders on my sand bed.

much thanks !!!!