# Freshwater Cleaners



## HollywoodBob (Jan 19, 2005)

I've got a 46 Gallon bowfront, with two Goldfish and a pleco in it.  I'm using sand for my substrate, with a UGJ and an Emperor 400, but I still have a lot of waste in my plants and on decorations.  I've heard that some shrimp eat detritus, is this true and what would be a good species?  I'd much rather have a good cleaning crew then to keep having to stir my tank to try and get the poo outta there.

-HollywoodBob


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## Teelie (Feb 13, 2005)

Sand and UGF's don't mix. It will eventually clog up and stop working making for a bigger mess. Ghost shrimp and apple snails are good at eating leftover waste foods though they don't usually eat fish waste.


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## HollywoodBob (Jan 19, 2005)

Sorry that was a typo, I meant UGJ, undergravel jets. I read somewhere that Malaysian Trumpet snails eat poo, but I'm not sure if that's right or not.

-HollywoodBob


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## Lexus (Jan 19, 2005)

http://www.fishpalace.org/M_tuberculata.html


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## Mr Aquarium (Jan 18, 2005)

IMO,,,,,the best cleaning crew you have to clean what you wanna clean is yourself,
I sill do my w/c weekly and vac what gravel i can,
even though my tank is now spotless in looking at it,,,,,,
You get out the poo thinking you don;t have to keep up your end of this fish keeping thing, but the
fishes pee pee is still there, and this is going to lead to a MUCH bigger problem then looking for poo eaters for your tank.


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## HollywoodBob (Jan 19, 2005)

I'm not concerned with having to do water changes, I do plenty every week so that's not a problem. It's really just the loose debris that I'm hoping to clean up with critters. 

-HollywoodBob


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

Snails


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## HollywoodBob (Jan 19, 2005)

Ok, so I got some MTS snails and they're great. But now I'm wondering if I can make a combination refugium/prefilter that just contains snails and some habitat for them to do their business. Kind of a snail chuckwagon, detritus gets sucked in and the snails can feast. 

I've attached my design, any suggestions?

-HollywoodBob


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

With to goldies and a pleco in there, the snails will have plenty to eat. You'll probably have too many snails within a cpl of months. The MTS will keep the sand aerated as well as eat leftovers.


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

Im not sure why no one is putting this together but the Goldfish will eat snails. Unless you plan on stocking the tank weekly it will be a loosing battle.


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