jumping gobies

alright i recently had my beloved diamond goby commit suicide by making a leap out of the tank. he had previously never been seen more than about 6 inches off the sand in the 7 months i've owned him. i bought another and a week later he did the same thing.

i had assumed that the first jump was possibly due to a heat spike but the second was seemingly unprovoked (by any condition under my control, perhaps my nasty clown chased them out, who knows). anyway, i'm looking for suggestions of what i can used to stir up my sand and keep it neat and orderly like my goby used to.

 

A sand sifting star fish. I dont think there capable of jumping.

 

Why dont you solve the escape hatch, then replace your Goby???

 

its not conducive to my 'look'. ive got an open top with a pendant mh. i dig the clean top.

 

Gotcha---I think triplemom and jwin just built a very stealthy screen.

 

Maybe some sort of snail? I Own to Olive Snails And They actually sift the sand really good in my 75gallon, everymorning you can see little tracks all over the place on the sandbed, kind acool to look at.

 

is there a link to this thread because it sounds interesting if their idea still works like an open top but stops jumpers??

also other reef sand sifters include crabs, hermit crabs, sea cucumbers, star fish and snails.

i would thouroughly reccomend the sand sifting star fish ive found them pretty hardy and good workers they are also fun to watch as they tend to move around in my experience

 

in regard to these sand sifting stars, my tank has a relatively small footprint that is packed with precariously stacked rock work, are they bulldozers? would they be strong enough to topple my rocks? my rock work is stacked on the bottom and never shifted with my gobies digging

 

They aren't bulldozers I don't think but they do require a decent bit of stand if you want them to live more than a few months. Also they do tend to eat some beneficial critters in your sandbed as well.

I would try ceriths and nassarius snails, also trochus snails eat some stuff off the sand but they don't churn it. It won't be perfect but it will be something.

All the fish I know that sift sand are jumpers unfortunately. You could just get a long stick and stir it up once or twice a week on your own too.

 

ive been doing some reading up on the sand sifter. i've got small hermits and snails but they mostly hang on the rocks. i have one very large cleaner shrimp and a moderately sized peppermint shrimp. do you think that this star would go for these guys? or are they too fast for him?