Clean Tank?

[TheReefer12]

What are the best plants and animals that I can purchase that will help keep water parameters near perfect and keep the sand and rocks clean from algae?

Brian

30 gal
288 watts Power Compact

[tabwyo]

Astreas and cerinths, lots of em. Maybe a tiger tail cuke if you have a sand bed or a sand sifting star. Dwarf hermits(if that's your thing) are quite active feeders.

[Doug1]

Just keep in mind that scavengers and herbivores only do half of the good. Everything They eat returns to the system as waste, only about 10% of consumed food is utilized for cellular growth and processes. You still have to deal with the left overs.
As waste breaks down it breaks down and releases nitrogen compounds that lead to ammonia, and nitrite/nitrate as well as releasing phosphates into the water.
These compounds can be used by various algae and bacteria as food if not dealt with, often times reaching plague proportions manifest as hair algae or cyanobacteria blooms.
Algaes and cyanobacteria are always present, and comprise a large part of the food chain. It's when the available nutrients are in abundance due to over feeding, insufficient skimming or consumption that the problems are able to get a foothold and increase to plague proportions.
The cleaner you keep the system and export nutrients the less problems you are going to have in the long run

[Krux]

feed lightly, skim heavily, and vac. often

[jdbassin]

Chaeto for plants nassarius snails astrea snails not big on cukes but serpent stars are awesome

jd

[robz]

Ryan when you say vacume often how do you acomplish this? Do you vacume the dirt out during water changes only? Or do you have a different method on how to do this?

[jesspaul]

Originally Posted by robz

a different method

If you have a sump you can put a filter sock/big carbon bag on the end of the hose you use for cleaning the gravel. the water returns to the sump so you can fclean as long as you want.

[Tasher80]

When Im doing a water change I will take the tube and put it at a 45 Degree angle to the sand and vacum and "crap" there. I get very little sand. I figure the small amount of sand that gets sucked up I can just put back in from the new bag I still have. it doesn't really add up to a lot of sand at all. Maybe 1/4 cup in a year.