Underestimating the power of.........CUC?

[Lasse]

I spent years writing for a living and I don't understand that at all.

How do you think it is for one that is not a native english speaker? I have stopped to read his stuff because I can´t follow them.

1. How important do you think a good clean up crew is to a saltwater reef aquarium?

Its not only important - it is essential in order to have an algae free tank and thriving corals

2. What are your favorite cleaners?

It is the diversity that is important. these animals is often specialised.

3. How often do you "replenish" the cleaning crew in your tank?

When I see them dimmish

One myth is that you should not add CUC in the beginning. IMO - it is very important to add the CUC exactly when you light up your aquarium. If you at the same time ad some living rocks with algae on them - its perfect. The CUC is most effective when the biomass of algae is low - when it get to high - the production will be higher than consumption. If you see algae - you are already losing a part of the war and need more CUC. In an aquarium with that load we normally have of nutrients ant the intensity of light - food for a whole army of CUC is no problem. Have you picked up a stone - lying in swallow and bright illuminated water and count snails and hermits on that? Remember - lower nutrition in the sea compared with our aquariums.

Many, many people talk about ugly phases in the first couple of months - have never been out for that - but I ad a decent CUC when I start to illuminate the aquarium. CUC is also detritus eaters - hear all the time of the importance of blasting and filtrate out detritus from the aquarium - never do that. My detritus is instead converted into beautiful sea cucumbers and other animals.

In large aquariums - CUC is normally tangs and urchins the most important - but in aquarium of my size - up to 450 L - invertebrates is most important. In four years I have never - ever clean my DT and sump from anything - still I think my aquarium looks rather good.

sincerely Lasse

 

[Ippyroy]

I gotta say that my tanks looks so much better after adding a larger and more diverse CUC and I can already see my tank stabilizing much better after a CUC and stuff from IPSF.

 

[jambi]

14g tank isn't going to hold a tang. Way to small.

Algae blenny might help. A pincushion or pencil urchin might help. The Vibrant might eventually solve the issue for you, but it takes time to do so.

Thanks for the Tang info. I thought as much. I have had blennys before and like them a lot. A Scooter in particular. Good suggestion. I am going to increase my CUC heard as well. Thanks for the advise!

 

[X-37B]

The huge CUC packages that many vendors sell are a huge mistake. Don't do it.

Unless you've got a problem, adding animals intended to 'fix' the problem is useless at best, and can actually be harmful. 3 month old tank, starting 'the uglies'... a bit of diatom, maybe a cyano patch, the new aquarist sees the marketing on a huge CUC package, and adds 50 snails, 30 hermits, maybe and urchin, conch...

And, in time, they all starve.

IMHO, fish are far better at eating algae than inverts. Foxface, tangs, algae blennies, etc. Much more active algae eaters than any snail. I've got a Foxface, a Tomini tang, and a Scopus tang. Talk about algae eaters... they spend every minute of every day poking around for every scap of algae they can find. A quarter sheet of Nori lasts about 5 minutes in my tank (they get one every day).

I don't do hermits, at all. Never again. Picked one too many off of healthy corals. Crabs are opportunistic feeders, I don't want them in my reef. Other crabs? I like a sump monster. Don't have one at the moment, but I'm on the lookout for one. Big gorilla crab or some such, help keep deposits in the sump broken up. Emeralds are OK in the tank, porcelain crabs are cool, if you can keep them. Neat critters, but I don't keep many crabs. None, at the moment.

Snails? Yeah, I've got some snails. Mine is a bare bottom tank... I've got a few big Mexican Turbo snails... great for algae film on the glass and (plastic) substrate. Also have a few Trochus snails, a couple Ceriths. 140g display, nearly a year old, I've got maybe a dozen snails, and that's PLENTY.

Carefull with the emeralds. I have about 5 left in my 120.
Trying to remove all now.
2 large colonies that I thought were having issues were from emerald crabs eating the flesh and polyps.
I caught them in the act at night.
I have had them for over a year in the 120 and 2 years in my nano with no issues, now not so good.
Just removed a long spined urchin as it to was found eating corals.
Halloween and tuxedo urchins so far only eat coralline.
Scralet hermits sit in some of my corals but with no issues so far.
Some have good luck and some dont.
I have 2 brittle stars the size of a quarter and various worms that can handle detrius and such.