20g CUC Sanity Check

[PRB83]

I have an Innovative Marine 20 gallon tank with approximately 20 lb of rock. I purchased the tank secondhand. I replaced the sand bed and added about 10 lb of rock, in addition to the 10lb of established rock. I'm dealing with GHA on both the new rock and the sand bed. I'm tackling that in the usual ways (manual removal, water changes, maintaining appropriate nitrate and phosphate levels), and I'm sure with some time and due diligence I'll get past it.

I would appreciate a sanity check of my clean up crew. Many of these came with the tank when I bought it:

- 3 Trochus Snails (Love these guys)
- 3 Nassarius Snails (For sand stirring)
- 1 Fighting Conch (Sand maintenance, also very fun to watch)
- 1 Pencil Urchin (Seems to prefer Coralline to GHA)
- 3 very small hermits (in dwarf cerith shells)
- 1 larger hermit (in Mexican Turbo shell)
- Lots of common bristle and larger iridescent fireworms (Yes, I like these. They're great scavengers.)

Current Bioload: 2 juvenile Ocellaris clownfish, 1 Orchid Dottyback

I would like to add more snails to help with the GHA, but I also don't want to overdo it and risk starvation after the GHA is in check. I'm debating replacing the Pencil Urchin with a Mexican Turbo. The Pencil Urchin is too much of a bulldozer in such a small tank, and I'd like to maintain more coralline algae. I think an additional Trochus or two would be beneficial. I'm also thinking of ditching the hermits entirely. They offer minimal gains in my opinion.

Any thoughts or advise would be appreciated!

 

[dansyr]

I have an Innovative Marine 20 gallon tank with approximately 20 lb of rock. I purchased the tank secondhand. I replaced the sand bed and added about 10 lb of rock, in addition to the 10lb of established rock. I'm dealing with GHA on both the new rock and the sand bed. I'm tackling that in the usual ways (manual removal, water changes, maintaining appropriate nitrate and phosphate levels), and I'm sure with some time and due diligence I'll get past it.

I would appreciate a sanity check of my clean up crew. Many of these came with the tank when I bought it:

- 3 Trochus Snails (Love these guys)
- 3 Nassarius Snails (For sand stirring)
- 1 Fighting Conch (Sand maintenance, also very fun to watch)
- 1 Pencil Urchin (Seems to prefer Coralline to GHA)
- 3 very small hermits (in dwarf cerith shells)
- 1 larger hermit (in Mexican Turbo shell)
- Lots of common bristle and larger iridescent fireworms (Yes, I like these. They're great scavengers.)

Current Bioload: 2 juvenile Ocellaris clownfish, 1 Orchid Dottyback

I would like to add more snails to help with the GHA, but I also don't want to overdo it and risk starvation after the GHA is in check. I'm debating replacing the Pencil Urchin with a Mexican Turbo. The Pencil Urchin is too much of a bulldozer in such a small tank, and I'd like to maintain more coralline algae. I think an additional Trochus or two would be beneficial. I'm also thinking of ditching the hermits entirely. They offer minimal gains in my opinion.

Any thoughts or advise would be appreciated!

That's about what I have in a 20 long. 2 nassarius instead of 3, I think currently at 2 trochus.

Never had a pencil urchin in there, but I have little pink pincushion (does excellent) and I used to hav a tuxedo urchin (also excellent). It bulldozes sometimes but not extremely so, and they're pretty small. I do recommend at least one turbo, I notice it eats differently than trochus and is quicker to attack disturbed algae patches.

Depending on how much light you have you could go slightly higher, maybe two ceriths and an astrea. I find my optimum is around 3 ceriths + 4 trochus-type + turbo + urchin (no hermits for me). If i end up with much more than that they hunt more, if i have fewer they don't keep up. You're definitely in the right range. Good luck with the GHA battle.