Sand bed under construction

[kenjr]

I have two fish in my 265 gallon tank , 200lb of live and MM rock mix, and 200lb of live sand.The sand Was 2" deep across bottom. But now, these two fish have been fanning the sand from every area they can. they have cleared out from between , around, and under the rocks to make tunnels and caves. I've got sand shooting through my power heads all the time.But know its starting to pile up all along the front and sides of my tank .From 6"deep down to about 3" through out the open areas of my tank.

Will these piles of sand hurt anything? Should i push Them back down or just let them be ? I know nothing about DSB that is why i ask...

Thanks for any advice, Ken

[Zebodog]

You won't win - the fish have far more time to rearrange their decor than you do. BTW, what fish in particular?

Hopefully your rockwork is supported by something other than the sand bed otherwise the constant tunneling will end up causing rock slides.

[kenjr]

A Blue Velvet damsel about 5" , and a Cinnamon Clown about 3 1/2 " .

The rock work was put in before the sand , should be pretty stable. as for were there tunneling under, its were i put gaps between rocks and placed a rock over the base pcs . guess they didn't think it was enough room they wanted deeper caves or something ...

[bertoni]

That might just be nesting behavior. The piles of sand should be okay. There's no point in leveling the sand, most likely. The fish will just make new depressions.

[kenjr]

Zebodog , bertoni ,

Thank you for the response's. I didn't want a deep sand bed but, i guess i got one . Maby when there done moving all the sand it will let my tank clear up some anyway...

[boilermaker1]

If your rocks are stable, let it pile up.
If you're getting a pile right in front and you dont want to look at 6" of sand, then carefully move the sand to somewhere else in the tank, dont put it back where the fish dug it out of, because they'll just pile it back up.

[DaveAngie79]

are u sure thats the only thing causing the problem? sometime water flow can cause that to or at least help. try adjusting flow to counter act the problem.

[DaveAngie79]

also try getting an anemone for the clown that will help calm him down and take a lot of his time

[kenjr]

Originally Posted by boilermaker1

If your rocks are stable, let it pile up.
If you're getting a pile right in front and you dont want to look at 6" of sand, then carefully move the sand to somewhere else in the tank, dont put it back where the fish dug it out of, because they'll just pile it back up.

Ya, the rocks are stable . It's not they just piled the sand in front of some rocks though . they've been very busy . It looks like the have cleared most of the sand from between all my rock work and pushed it all to the outside across the whole tank . i don't really mind . I just didn't know if the sand was that deep for a while , and i added other fish later, who didn't like the sand scape started moving it again if it would release anything bad . that's my concern.

Originally Posted by DaveAngie79

are u sure that's the only thing causing the problem? sometime water flow can cause that to or at least help. try adjusting flow to counter act the problem.

Yes, its definitely the fish. they wedge there head against a rock and fan there tails as fast as the can shooting sand as far out and up as the can. i guess i should add, I've kept them in my 55gallon tank for about a year and it was a bear bottom tank.Maybe they don't like the sand.

Originally Posted by DaveAngie79

also try getting an anemone for the clown that will help calm him down and take a lot of his time

I would like ta add an anemone later down the road. I want to let my tank mature some and i need to replace my t5 bulbs yet. do you have any suggestions as to what kind of anemone for my Cinnamon clown ? O ya , my tank is 30" deep. we'll 24" now to sand bed .