What clean up crew member(s) will eat diatoms off the sand?

[joshvollberg]

In my reef tank, (three months old) I am still battling diatoms on the sand bed. The turkey baster allows them to dissipate only for a few hours before I start to see them come back again.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Josh

[lkoechle]

ceriths I believe will.  go to reefcleaners.org  each of their descriptions list what they eat.

[Toomanyfish]

The best one in my own opinion is a fighting conch, get him small because they have a massive appetite 

[brandon429]

The cure for diatoms not joking:

 

[Toomanyfish]

all I can think of is all the bacteria on the sand dying 

[brandon429]

We have a six page thread on why it doesn't  but agreed that's the intended shock value 

 

first reason why:

rinsing anything in tap water isn't antibacterial or lab techs would wipe down slides and surfaces with tap water to sterilize. We can't even sterilize steel medical surfaces using scalding hot tap water, much less a cool five min rinse on surfaces that look like the Grand Canyon at the microscopic level (sand grains have troughs and valleys that retain bacteria)

 

if anyone here takes a sample drop of actual tap water and places it on selective agar for generalized aerobes and incubates at correct temp for 48 hours, it has tons of living bacteria in it...many of which come from the pipe scum before the tap. Water that alternates hot/cold with no       -apparent- direct feeding still pumps out filthy bac into our lemonade. Tap is suppressive not sterilizing and it doesn't work well in short burst applications. 

 

second takeaway is impact: if the loss of sandbed bacteria mattered nobody could go bare bottom from a formerly sandbedded tank

 

the point of the rinse isn't the tap, it's the force removal of all detritus and the cyano at the same time. This could be a sw rinse just the same 

[Toomanyfish]

You have some good points but I still like the natural way. Too much work to to pull sand every time it occurs I think

[Walker]

If you have space, a goby/pistol shrimp pair might work. They don't clean the sand so much as keep it moving so diatoms dissipate. I have a yellow watchman/pistol pair and the side of the aquarium that they live on always has clean sand.

[RCReef]

Go to reefcleaners.org and get dwarf ceriths from John. They ate diatoms off my sand during the cycle. He's a sponsor here and is the man when it comes to clean up crews. I usually go with a combination of dwarf and regular ceriths, nerites, nasarius, and a few small hermits. He has cleanup crew packages based on tank size also that are a very good way to go.