Who's your favourite (or not) sand sifter ?

[gregzz4]

Who's been your most and least favourite sifter ?

Don't judge my question based on how new my tank is
I'm just lookin' for 'down the road' critters

[wmcinnes]

Ive asked this question before and heard that the Diamond Goby is the best.. best sand sifting fish wise anyway, im not too sure about the other critters. Others will chime in and help you out more than I can haha

[gregzz4]

Thanks Wayne
The Diamond comes up a lot

I searched long enough that I felt it might be better to start a new thread specific to sifters

[subman]

My favorite was a tiger tail cucumber. Love the diamond gobies but hate the mess they make. I think my all time favorite was a goat fish I had for about 10min till my lion ate him. (The goatfish was to big for him to eat but he jammed it down his throat by ramming into the rocks!)

[Proteus]

Goat fish are rad but get a little big for your 75g. I had a diamond gobie that was great at sifting. But covered everything.

My favorite is a very large snail. Can't remember the name but is brown and huge. And my conchs

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by Titus99

Goat fish are rad but get a little big for your 75g. I had a diamond gobie that was great at sifting. But covered everything.

I have a Signal Goby who does the same thing. He covers everything in sand: including my gorgeous Acan colony. My sandbed looks great, but he drives me nuts. I'm in my tank every day digging things out of the sand. He also digs out the sand underneath my scape. Thankfully, my scape is simple and won't topple.

He may wind up a "free to a good home" fish.

[Reef Pilot]

I have a pair of Orange Spot Gobies, and they do a great job of sifting and moving around the sand. Interesting to watch, too, and how they interact with other fish, when they get too close.

[Aquattro]

I hate sand sifting fish, they always cover everything with sand. I use a seastar, a large conch, and a bunch of nassarius snails.

[intarsiabox]

My diamond (aka orange spot) goby does an amazing job. Unlike a dragon goby I once had he just stays at the bottom of the tank to sift sand rather than swimming up in water column and spitting it everywhere. I've never had a problem with this one covering corals with sand.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by intarsiabox

My diamond (aka orange spot) goby does an amazing job. Unlike a dragon goby I once had he just stays at the bottom of the tank to sift sand rather than swimming up in water column and spitting it everywhere. I've never had a problem with this one covering corals with sand.

Yeah, same with mine. They only move the sand on the bottom, and make little holes and mounds. Any coral on the sand could get covered, but not on the live rock. Having said that I have some mushrooms growing down on the sand, and they seem to always get uncovered on their own. One thing that is important, though, is that your live rock is sitting on the glass bottom, not on the sand, which would be undermined and cause shifting.

I should mention too, that my sand is the larger coral rubble type, not the fine sugar sand.