Clean up crew question

[miggs76]

I have a lightly stocked 60 gallon. I think my clean up crew is probably too small. Right now I have about 15 trochus/astrea snails, 2 sand conchs, about 5 scarlett hermits, 5 red legged hermits, 5 electric blue hermits.

 

Does that seem like it isn't enough?

 

I have next to no algae.....just a tiny bit of cyano on a couple rocks. There is detritus because I use a turkey baster every now and then to blast the rocks and see it suspended in the water column.

 

For some reason or another all of my nassarius snails are dead... I used to have like 20 small ones. I am thinking my tank is too clean and they starved. The conchs clean the sand bed so well I don't think they had anything to eat.

[flooddc]

Lack of algae will starved them. Once awhile I give mine a large chunk of shrimp or nori.

[Rosco's Reefs]

Lack of algae will starved them. Once awhile I give mine a large chunk of shrimp or nori.

 

Really..? Just throw a raw shrimp or so in the tank? Cool.

[Big Country]

The last couple of times that I've put Nassarius in my tank I don't see very many left, not alot of cerith's either, I just don't think they do well for the most part. Maybe the tonga nassarius which are larger and more expensive do better I don't know. I have good luck with Astrae and Nerite.

[PotomacBoater]

my cerith's die within 2 weeks

but I still have nassarius left in my tank after 2 months.

(I only see them when I put garlic pellet in there, and they come running)

 

I add them 25 or more at a time

and I expect 50% loss.

obviously there is enough to eat for them,

even with 2 turbo's and some emerald crabs.

 

reefcleaners.com has lots of Clean up Crew options.

I never get their pre-made packages (too many hermits, and you already have some)

but you can mix and match different inverts and find what works for you

some are less then .10 each in quantity, so you don't have much to lose

[matt]

The vendor for the ricordia group buy also sells inverts you might want...could maybe jump on there too

[treesprite]

The large Tonga nassarius are cool snails. I have had better luck with those than any other snails, but hermit crabs love their shells (read "dead snails". Hermits also love cerith shells, so again there are dead snails. Nerites are 3rd in line for hermit's favorite shell. The only snails I've had to not get killed off by hermits are astreas (shells wrong shape) and turbos (shells too big).

 

Start out with at least twice as many snails as hermits, because eventually you will only have half as many snails as hermits. I won;t keep more than one or two hermits. Shrimps do the same job that hermit crabs do, so I recommend getting skunk cleaner and fire shrimps, and also peppermint shrimps if nothing in your tank will eat them (but large cleaner shrimp will eat very small pepp shrimp).

[Big Country]

Shimp don't do so well in my tank with my Wrasse population although I have seen one peppermint in there lately. I've been catching any hermits I've seen in the display and putting them in the frag tank or into the sump. I think my wrasse's have pretty much killed the nassarius and cerith snails

[Cliff Puckstable]

I highly recommend getting a conch. Mines a hoss.

[basser9]

I would add a sallylightfoot crab and 2 red mitrix crabs plus 2 turbos.

YOU want to head off any bubble algea and hair algea and these cleaners can help.

If you put the right cleaners in the right population you will never see any algea to many people

wait untill they see hair/bubble etc then its to late.

A large cerith population with no hermits is way better then a mix of herms and snails.

A few large turbos are great at getting at hair algea before it can take hold.

Sallylightfoot crabs when small are great cleaners.

And nothing attacks detritus like a small TURD cucumber.

Something that works for REDslime is dropping a couple of mollies in your tank for a

couple of weeks.......about 1in 3 seem to love red slime.

Edited January 17, 2013 by basser9

[treesprite]

Interesting to know about mollies and cyano ("red slime")

[basser9]

20 years ago i had a carpet of red slime in a 55gal fish only tank.

I added a blue tang and it sucked it off the gravel like it was candy.....ate it all.

It died in 6 months and i never found another that would touch it....always add one just incase.

[zygote2k]

scarlet and red leg hermits grow large quick. Use only the tiniest blue leg hermits. I have 300 or so of the tiny blue legs, 200 tiny ceriths, and about 25 astrea snails. I feed very heavily too.

[bill stine]

reefcleaners.com has lots of Clean up Crew options.

I never get their pre-made packages (too many hermits, and you already have some)

but you can mix and match different inverts and find what works for you

some are less then .10 each in quantity, so you don't have much to lose

 

If you look at the top of the list of packages there is a tab for crews without crabs in them.