Sand Sifter Experiment

[Jimbo]

Hi, my sand bed it almost perfectly white. Some of this is due to my lighting, it creates bubbles an inch down. My black cucumber is also responsible for some of the cleaning. Have had a sand sifting star for several weeks now and still have plenty of life in the SB. It seems that some of the worms have moved down out of reach of the sand sifter which stay's within the first inch (is this common with sand sifters or is my sand bed topology responsible). I also have some mud in about 1/3 of the tank topped with some fine aragonite. I have 1.5 inches of fine on top of some 6 inches of larger dolomite. I wonder if the dolomite keeps the sand sifter in the upper regions. I think I have more life in my sand bed now than before I added the sand sifter, but don't go out and buy one based on my observations, it's way to soon to tell for sure.

[Casey]

Jim I have two of them and more life in my sand than ever

[tdwyatt]

hard to make a TRUE evaluation of what your benthic infauna populations are unless you've been doing sampling and counts of the sandbed. Most of the critters that would be of concern are beyond the cpabilities of the human eye to see, and would require a 10x microscope at least to do true population dynamics studies. Might want to read through a good bio text for a methodology for doing your populations so that you could give us some concrete numbers. It may be true that the sifter under the circumstances may not significantly imact the pops, but without good evaluations of your benthos, it is just idle speculation. Keep in mind that you have a closed system, and regardless of what may appear, the seastar IS eating something, and the seastars in question (most likely Archaster typicus or some spp of Protoreaster) do consume benthic infauna as their primary diet...

Systems with large surface areas of appropriate substrates should be capable of supporting a sand-sifting seastar, the problem is that the system is a closed system, and in order to maintain appropriate populations in the benthos, the tank must be sufficiently large enough such that the seastar doesn't reduce these populations to levels that they cannot repopulate the system.

I guess size DOES matter...

[sally]

HI: You may be able to keep your sand sifting star alive for weeks, months even a year or two but I'm sad to say it will eventually starve to death. I bought one on a recomendation. It lived for over a year but eventually starved to death.....it was awful.

[Casey]

Originally posted by sally
HI: You may be able to keep your sand sifting star alive for weeks, months even a year or two but I'm sad to say it will eventually starve to death. I bought one on a recomendation. It lived for over a year but eventually starved to death.....it was awful.

well from what Tom says who cares it is bad anyway.

[sally]

Originally posted by Casey
Jim I have two of them and more life in my sand than ever

Exactly my point...they will starve even though you think you have more life than ever. Just my .02

[Jimbo]

Wow, I need a microscope, will scope out ebay. Looked around for somethreads on them starving, found a couple, but I think this thing eats blender mush also. Another recommended non intrusive sand sifter that I found recommended is a court jester gobie. People say it won't undermine your rock work.

[Jimbo]

Tom or whoever, what would you all recommend for a good cheap microscope, used or not that I will be able to take pictures with.

[tdwyatt]

Originally posted by Jimbo
... what would you all recommend for a good cheap microscope... ...that I will be able to take pictures with.???

There are many new and used microscopes that will do fine, prolly don't need much above the 100x level, but if you want to take pix, you might want to look at some of the midprice range microscopes (about $600 to $800 US). For what most of us want here, there is a electronic microscope (marketed for kids) that would be great for aquaria benthic studfies. It uses the PC as the optical processor and is capable of capturing images as .jpg format files. It is InteliPlay QX3 microscope by Intel, and it is under $200 US, prolly can find it for less on the Internet. I have used it and it plugs right into the USB port, great toy for the kids, and I can use it as well for microphotographs.

Check out this source for lab grade microscopes, , and this site for info on the IntelPlay QX3 microscope . I like the QX3 that I have a lot, and it is very easy to use. I'll take some pix with it this week so you can see how they look.

HTH

[Jimbo]

Thanks Tom I'm a little a head of you, found them for $47 on yahoo shopping. Looks like they take decent pics for the price.