Reefs and Geeks
Well-Known Member
After being in the hobby for over 7 years, I've finally broken down and decided to get a clean up crew! Until now, I've only had a pair of urchins in my display. I've always been afraid my fish would eat them (porcupine puffer and trigger) so I've never bothered spending money to order a bunch online, and hate to spend $4 on a single snail or hermit at my LFSs. Now that I've got frag tanks tied to my main display, I got pretty excited when I realized I could finally get a full clean up crew and see what all the buzz is about.
For my 2 (soon to be 3) frag tanks, I ordered 125 dwarf ceriths, 20 nassarius, 30 Florida Ceriths, 40 Astraeas, and 6 Trochus snails. These will be spread out between a 30 gallon frag tank, a large section of my sump that I'm using as a frag tank (about 30-40 gallons) and for a 60 gallon frag tank I will be getting soon. I figure I can just keep them all in the tanks I have now, and when I get my next one set up I can move the extra over. I might even try puting a couple in my display to see if my fish would actually bother then or not.
Once question I had is how much of a pain is flipping over 40 astraea snails going to be? I always wanted to avoid snails that couldn't right themselves thinking of how much of a pain it would be in my 27" deep display, but maybe not so bad in a frag tank? How frequently should I be checking on them and flipping them over? ow long can they realistically survive on their backs? I went with astreas because trochus are just so much more expensive it's crazy and I couldn't possibly argue to my wife about spending $200+ on snails.
For my 2 (soon to be 3) frag tanks, I ordered 125 dwarf ceriths, 20 nassarius, 30 Florida Ceriths, 40 Astraeas, and 6 Trochus snails. These will be spread out between a 30 gallon frag tank, a large section of my sump that I'm using as a frag tank (about 30-40 gallons) and for a 60 gallon frag tank I will be getting soon. I figure I can just keep them all in the tanks I have now, and when I get my next one set up I can move the extra over. I might even try puting a couple in my display to see if my fish would actually bother then or not.
Once question I had is how much of a pain is flipping over 40 astraea snails going to be? I always wanted to avoid snails that couldn't right themselves thinking of how much of a pain it would be in my 27" deep display, but maybe not so bad in a frag tank? How frequently should I be checking on them and flipping them over? ow long can they realistically survive on their backs? I went with astreas because trochus are just so much more expensive it's crazy and I couldn't possibly argue to my wife about spending $200+ on snails.
