I'm not planning to have any fish. Is there any advantage other than having my sand moved around if I get a Nassarius? Would there even be enough food for it?

I'm planning to get a Nerite and a couple dwarf Ceriths. Just wondering if I should bother with the Nassarius. Is there any pico safe CUC member to airate the sand other than Nassarius?

Nassarius snails are not necessary. You will have pods and worms that help move through the sand, and a shallow sand bed doesn't really need aeration to function properly.

My Nassarius snails always stay at the top on my tank

+1.
unless you have a 3" sandbed...

Great to know. Thanks! Yes, I've got plenty of pods and worms in there. I found some very tiny pods on the glass today. They look different and much smaller than the ones on the rocks.

I just got 2 Nerites and 2 Ceriths. The Nerites were going nuts today moving all over the tank, but the Ceriths didn't really move at all. I set one on a rock and it eventually did a 360, but nothing else. The other, I set in the sand and it just started burying itself. I'm interested to see where they will be when I get to the lab tomorrow.

Will you have to feed Nassarius snails if you have zero fish? I am going to pick up some of these as recommend from reefcleaners.org. What type of food should I feed them if I do need to and how often? Thanks!

If you don't have fish to feed then I would drop something in there once in awhile. I'm not sure if they'd consume pelleted food, but you could offer it a piece of shrimp or frozen seafood. Just remember that nass snails are carnivores, not algae consumers. If you want CUC and don't have fish, you wouldn't need something like a nass to consume the leftovers.



Mexican ceriths (sometimes called bajas) will burrow into the sandbed, and clean a bit between the sand and the glass. Just a suggestion for the future.

Nass in aquariums are often times starving, and if you have no fish and you don't feed chunky food to the bottom of the tank, they'll starve even faster.

Got it! Was going to get them because reefcleaners.org recommend it but I'll go without them for awhile.

Mine love shrimp pellets. Drop one in and they come out of their foxholes like little mollusk commandos, secure the targeted pellet, and extract it to the safe zone.