I'm confused about "clean up crews"

[tom66645]

If I can offer a different suggestion: I long ago stopped using "clean up crews". I found that hermits and snails didn't really last all that long, and when a snail dies, think pollution and a nasty stink.
I keep a bare bottom tank, makes it very easy to suck up the detritus when doing a water change. For algae I use a lawnmower blenny. They literally scrape the rock all day long. They also eat a lot of detritus.
I think the key is simply not overfeeding, keeping the nutrient input low. The last thing I noticed, (please chime in if anyone has made a similar observation) is that feeding frozen food, as opposed to dry flake and pellet, seems to keep the algae problem far at bay.

 

[Dmsick]

If I can offer a different suggestion: I long ago stopped using "clean up crews". I found that hermits and snails didn't really last all that long, and when a snail dies, think pollution and a nasty stink.
I keep a bare bottom tank, makes it very easy to suck up the detritus when doing a water change. For algae I use a lawnmower blenny. They literally scrape the rock all day long. They also eat a lot of detritus.
I think the key is simply not overfeeding, keeping the nutrient input low. The last thing I noticed, (please chime in if anyone has made a similar observation) is that feeding frozen food, as opposed to dry flake and pellet, seems to keep the algae problem far at bay.

Thanks. I appreciate that perspective. I strongly considered a bare bottom tank. I ended up using aragonite because I thought I might need it to buffer my water source which tends to run a little more acidic. One of the things I learned form keeping freshwater fish for many years is to help water quality by not overfeeding. I'm sure it will take me a little while to figure out feeding in this tank so I can feed adequately to avoid aggression issues but not so much that I create other issues.

 

[lejeune981]

I've got a different perspective on cucs..
I'm gonna try it on my new 74 gallon tower build..

I'm going with Stomalla snails only.. and limpets and Astrina starfish that hitchiked over..
Yellow tang maybe.. (I have a scopas and purple in my existing reef.. and want a yellow too lol)
I really like the sally Light foot crabs I have in the reef.. so i will add 2 of those to the new tank..


(I've got a dozen emeralds.. a few hermits left.. 3 BIG turbo snails.. some astrea snails.. pincusion urchin.. tiger conch.. 4 or 5 nassaruius snails.. left of my original cuc for the 90)
Being a noob... I seen all the sources saying you need X amount per gallon CUC... and I fell for it.. and went big...
Most died.. so I'm gonna try small... but efficient on the new tank..

 

[lejeune981]

Piece of advice... if you want pretty coraline covered rock... do NOT get an urchin... mine is like a coraline seeking missile

 

[Sunny Goold]

What's an orange spot gotten? I tried to look it up and see a Filefish, Goby and FoxFace - the FoxFace looks cool

 

[Dmsick]

What's an orange spot gotten? I tried to look it up and see a Filefish, Goby and FoxFace - the FoxFace looks cool

Here is a link with a pic and some info about the orange spot goby https://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+2124+195&pcatid=195

 

[Dmsick]

I've got a different perspective on cucs..
I'm gonna try it on my new 74 gallon tower build..

I'm going with Stomalla snails only.. and limpets and Astrina starfish that hitchiked over..
Yellow tang maybe.. (I have a scopas and purple in my existing reef.. and want a yellow too lol)
I really like the sally Light foot crabs I have in the reef.. so i will add 2 of those to the new tank..


(I've got a dozen emeralds.. a few hermits left.. 3 BIG turbo snails.. some astrea snails.. pincusion urchin.. tiger conch.. 4 or 5 nassaruius snails.. left of my original cuc for the 90)
Being a noob... I seen all the sources saying you need X amount per gallon CUC... and I fell for it.. and went big...
Most died.. so I'm gonna try small... but efficient on the new tank..

Thanks. That's exactly what I'm hoping to avoid.

 

[PatW]

Thanks all for the responses. This has been super helpful. When looking at the various vendors I was finding it hard to believe that I needed 100+ snails for my new tank. I’ll plan to start with smaller numbers and work my way up as needed. And @Greybeard, I always appreciate a Star Wars reference!!

It depends on the snails. I have a 300 gallon tank. I have trochus snails which are good at cleaning vertical surfaces, tiger conchs for sand and anything on the bottom, nasarius for detritus and turbo snails for the top of the rocks. I don’t have anywhere near 100 snails. I might have 50 but no more than that. I have something like 3 nasarius, 5 conchs, 25 trochus and 12 turbos.

None of my turbos is large but some are medium large and I now wish that I had gone all small. I tried hermits but they are too opportunistic. They will murder anything like snails or other hermits and I suspect corals if they feel like it. I had hair algae and added snails gradually until it was pretty much gone. I used the LFS and added cleanup crew over a period of months.

 

[Dmsick]

It depends on the snails. I have a 300 gallon tank. I have trochus snails which are good at cleaning vertical surfaces, tiger conchs for sand and anything on the bottom, nasarius for detritus and turbo snails for the top of the rocks. I don’t have anywhere near 100 snails. I might have 50 but no more than that. I have something like 3 nasarius, 5 conchs, 25 trochus and 12 turbos.

None of my turbos is large but some are medium large and I now wish that I had gone all small. I tried hermits but they are too opportunistic. They will murder anything like snails or other hermits and I suspect corals if they feel like it. I had hair algae and added snails gradually until it was pretty much gone. I used the LFS and added cleanup crew over a period of months.

Thanks for the input. This is exactly what I intend to do! You guys are awesome.

 

[rstrann]

Greybeard hot the nail on the head. Be careful about your choice of CUC. Turbos are great... If you don't mind repositioning something every day after a night of bulldozing your carefully-placed frags. But I do trust a few hermits in every tank. I LOVE scarlets, and especially the orange\red striped ones. They're pricey but worth it. I've never seen them kill a snail and I've seen them mow down patches of cyanobacteria like it was cotton candy. I like astrea and cerith snails, I usually keep a few in a tank. Margaritas always get stuck on their backs in my experience. I will never trust another nassarius again. I watched one kill a healthy margarita snail once, and then another one try to kill a red foot snail. Gruesome to watch btw.

 

[Acartia]

This may go against common wisdom, but if you have sand, I recommend a sand sifter star. I only have a 20, and my star has been in there for three years. I probably over feed, but he makes up for it.

 

[MJC]

Everything Poops!!! you are your tanks best clean up crew manually remove what you can

 

[BubblesUp]

A lfs has great packages based on tank sizes: https://www.jlaquatics.com/livestock/reef-custodian-packages.html. I added a basic package but only after I had a bit of an algae bloom, which worked out to good timing. The turbo snails are machines - they knock over stuff but clean the glass nicely. I'll add another package after the tank is well established but for now the starter package worked just right.

 

[SteadyC]

My tank is 110 gallons, and my CUC are, sailfin tang, yellow tang, blue tuxedo urchin, 1 conch, 3 astraea snails, and a chestnut cowrie. I don’t like turbos snails, too large for me, and I don’t have enough algae to keep them alive. That’s it. Enough algae to keep them alive and busy, 4 total snails, 1 urchin, and 1 conch. No where near the 100 number, that recommendation is nuts in my opinion . Nessarius are a waste, I clean the sand better than they do. Astalina starfish and stomatella snails just happen naturally in my experience, I have never added them, but I have tons of them. They are welcome, but I didn’t add them.

 

[mitch91175]

My tank is moving through the cycle nicely and I'll hopefully be adding some livestock soon. I've been reading about adding a clean up crew and have looked at reef cleaners as well as some others. It seems some people are pretty hot on them and others maybe not as much. When I see pics of some of these beautiful show tanks full of vibrant corals and fish, I don't usually see a massive herd of snails and crabs running around the tank. Are the snails just used to get the tank through the new tank phase or do some people not use them at all?

Reason you don't see the cleanup crew is because the tanks are soo full of coral you overlook them. To me a decent cleaup-up crew is essential to a thriving reef tank. You do not want to buy an oversized crew to begin with. On ReefCleaners, those recommendations are overly exaggerated if you ask me. Get you some trochus snails and call it a day. They will do wonders for your tank. If you have fish, cleaner shrimp are a necessity (at least to me) so they can setup cleaning stations in your tank for fish to get cleaned up.

 

[mitch91175]

Great link. Thank you! My tank is a 100g. I'm thinking to start with 10 ceriths, 3 nassarius, 3 nerites and 3 astraea. I'll see how it goes from there.

I'd skip all of those and just get trochus and conch snails. Both of them can flip themselves over and do a much better job cleaning (what you want them to do). Ever wonder why the cleanup crews do not include those snails I mentioned above? Because they do such a good job and have a much longer life span, the companies that sell CUCs won't be getting more business from you.

 

[alex.mccann99]

Of course a lot depends on the size of your tank, how many and how big of fish, type of fish and then, how often you feed them. I started out telling myself I wouldn't buy any hermits, but now I'd say I have about 10 little blue legged hermits. I have a couple red legged ones also. They're busy little guys, especially at night and when they smell the food hit the tank, they come scurrying out from under all their rocks and holes. I have 4 or 5 Trochus snails, which I would say are an excellent addition, they can upright themselves if/when they fall off the glass or a rock. I also recently added 4 Peppermint Shrimp, I've watched them at night scurrying around and have witnessed them taking down a couple small aptasia pest anemones I had. I have a pair of Blood Red Fire Cleaner Shrimp that eat left over food, have had them in my tank almost 3 years now. As for the sand bed, I've got a few big Nasarrias snails and two Fighting Conchs.

 

[lejeune981]

Reason you don't see the cleanup crew is because the tanks are soo full of coral you overlook them. To me a decent cleaup-up crew is essential to a thriving reef tank. You do not want to buy an oversized crew to begin with. On ReefCleaners, those recommendations are overly exaggerated if you ask me. Get you some trochus snails and call it a day. They will do wonders for your tank. If you have fish, cleaner shrimp are a necessity (at least to me) so they can setup cleaning stations in your tank for fish to get cleaned up.

I wish I could keep cleaner shrimp.. my little long nose hawk fish is a shrimp killin machine... I still can't figure out how he eats them.. the last one was bigger than him... but the very next morning.. shrimp was gone.. and ol hawk eye had a huge belly and wiskers.... he ate my pep shrimp too...

Maybe I should try a cleaner wrasse or something

 

[WannaBSpaghetti]

Probably a stupid question - but do PomPom crabs count as CUC members?

Really I'm just trying to justify a purchase. I love their little pompoms...

 

[._Z_.]

Probably a stupid question - but do PomPom crabs count as CUC members?

Really I'm just trying to justify a purchase. I love their little pompoms...

I wouldn’t count them as cuc, more like ornamental invertebrates. I have one and she’s very interesting to watch! Picked her up WYSIWYG from divers den for the same price as the regular pompoms.

If you get one, make sure you get one with both pompoms, that way it isn’t too shy. (They’re less likely to hide all the time if they have their defense mechanism)

Of course make sure your tank parameters are good enough for anemones.