Snails in fuge?

What would you recommend to put in my sump/fuge to eat the detritus that ends up down there?

 

The majority of snails don't eat detritus. The only snails I could even possibly recommend for that purpose are nassarius snails, but they don't do so well without a sand bed.

Two better options exist. The first is to use a filter sock to pull the stuff out before it gets into the fuge. The second is to have a powerhead in there on a timer, and have it turn on for a couple minutes a day to stir up the stuff into the water.

 

Well I do have a sand bed in the fuge part...I have an e-mail into John at reefcleaners to get his recommendation...Thanks.

-Brett

 

There is much discussion/debate/dissent on this issue.

For me and my setup - I feel a snail-less fuge is best. I only have chaeto and 6" DSB in my fuge. Nothing more. In the few months it has been running we have seen enormous increases in the isopods and copepods swimming in the tank. Even the batch of tigger-pods we dropped in (live) seem to have colonized the tank as we saw hundreds of them swimming around at night in the DT with a flashlight when all the flow was off during a coral feeding.

Others may tell you to have a few sand sifting snails in your fuge. Others still will tell you to have LR rubble.

For me, I have enough room for LR in my DT and in my sump to where the fuge is for chaeto and sand for pods/ stars/worms, etc.

hope this helps.

 

Ya know I was thinking this same thing about a month ago. So I got a few stuck them in there just too see what would happen. They really dont do too great of a job eating anything green down there. Think it grows so fast that it is 2 much for them. As far as the detritus I usally take a small hose I have and suck out the stuff that builds up. I run a filter sock in my sump most all the time. It does not seem to catch everything I still end up with it on the floor in the pump chamber. So thats what I do is just suck it out with an airline sized hose about once a month.

 

Ok airline hose got it. What about off the sand?

 

I'd leave that - it's fuge food!!! That's the purpose of the fuge to collect that kind of stuff.

 

Makes sense!

 

+1
I also have 2 bristle worms living in my fuge

 

Yea what I meant there was that I use the airline to take algae out of the fuge forgive me if I was not clear about that