Sand Sifting Gobie Creating huge dust storms!!!

Hello all . . . .

About a week ago I added a Sand Sifting Gobie to my fish tank. (90g reef - wet/dry) I bought him mainly to clean the sand bed and keep things floating in the water colomn so that the filter can filter as much muck as possible. Knowing that these types of gobies burrow and rearrange your set up, I put him in anyway.

My tank is well established, and corals a growing nicely. There are only a few other fish in the tank. There are however a few dead spots in the tank along the base of the reef where sediment has settled.

This fine fish has addressed all these areas where there is sediment and has done a great job of cleaning up house. The only draw back is that now when the lights come on - he comes out to clean/eat/feed. And in the process stirs up huge dust storms.

This was expected . . . . .

Does anyone have any similar experiances with this type of fish?

Does anyone have a clue weather or not he will settle down and keep from sifting as much? Or am I now doomed to a constantly cloudy tank?

Soon, I plan on vacuming out what ever sediment he hasnt gotten to and seeing if that will help. Also thought I shloud mention - filter pads have been changed once since he was put in and the pad was just gross looking - after only four days and will continue to do so untill he learns to relax :-/ .

What are your thoughts?

Awesome site by the way - Awesome posters as well !

 

Similar experience

HI,
I have very fine sand in my 37 gal tall and my goby seems to turn it over every day.
I have to clean pads almost weekly it will slow down after a while, you will lose some mud or super fine sand.
BE sure your rocks are stable there have been dissasters with rock falling due to sediment movement.
Doug

 

Not likely...that's how they feed and it'll most likely keep on doing it until the day it dies.

 

Depends on the sand.
My last tank had average sand (not super fine) and eventually the finer stuff got removed by floss and the storms were less noticeable.

 

I don't like those types of gobies as I have Tridacna clams and bottom corals that will accumulate sand on them from these types of fish!

 

I had to remove my engineer goby cause it wreaked havoc on everything ALL THE TIME. It never quit. I wouldnt reccommend having one unless your rocks are secure and sitting on the bottom, not sitting on the sand, cause it will knocke them over eventually. Luckily my rocks just shifted a little bit and didnt fall over, I stacked my rocks so there was more then one rock supporting each thing lifted so it would take a lot to knock it all over, but the goby is gone now, so no worries, hahahaha.

oh yeah, as coral reefer mentioned, I had to dig up corals that were covered by the goby.

 

Thank goodness my shrimp goby is satisfied with just building small sand mounds here and there.

It is my maroon clown that is a major sand stirrer.

Apparently she wants a clear bottom below where she spends most time.

This is a relatively new habit and shows no sign of going away.

 

Clowns like smooth surfaces to lay their eggs, thats a sign of that shes wanting to lay eggs.