Who's in your Clean Up Crew?

[Daniel@R2R]

What are the standard members of your clean up crew?

My go to MVP's are nassarius snails, ceriths, dwarf ceriths, nerites, and occasionally turbos.

 

[Sallstrom]

Ctenochaetus tangs and urchins! And perhaps a rabbitfish for Valonia. And filefish for Aiptasia. And a sixline wrasse for flatworms :)

 

[Big G]

+1 ^^^ except the Turbos. Plus I have a Florida Fighting Conch in there somewhere. Only see it once in awhile. Looking at adding Trochus snails to the mix.

 

[saltyhog]

Can't believe there's not more response to this.

The backbone of my cleanup crew are Trochus snails (moderate size, reproduce well, can right themselves if knocked over). I also have ceriths, dwarf ceriths, nerites (which can be a pain with all the egg laying and climbing out of the tank), one humongous Turbo and several tiger and fighting conchs. I may consider adding some nassarius soon but I ended up with an unwanted whelk in the last shipment of them I ordered.

Tom Turbo....that's a huge Hawaiian feather duster and a big blood shrimp.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Skunk cleaner shrimp, nassarius snails, ceriths, dwarf ceriths nerites, hermit crabs, and stomatella snails.

 

[Evan28395950]

Right now, I have snails, two urchins and a fireworm (don’t worry the last one is getting removed tonight). ;)

 

[andrewkw]

Nothing exciting and probably drastically under stocked but it works. In my 90 gallon I have 2 strawberry top hat snails and one halloween hermit. It took a while but they have cleaned up most of the algae. There was a big hair algae explosion when I started it up but those 3 inverts took care of it + water changes and gfo.

In my main display (112) I have one really really really old mexican turbo - over 5 years I don't understand how he's still alive and about 10-12 trochus and 2 halloween hermits. Additionally I have several thousand astrena snails. I used to be way more into cleanup crew. It was fairly common for lfs to have $1 per snail or even 50 cent per snail sales. I'd go buy 50-100 and they'd last a year or so. Keeping much smaller numbers they tend to last 3+ years and my tanks remain more or less algae free.

 

[jdthomas]

I think my cleanup crew at this point is maybe 5-6 snails. There may or may not be an emerald crab in there, but I haven't seen him in quite a while. And a diamond goby. I'm not really much for keeping up with cleanup guys.

 

[Instigate]

In my 37 gallon AIO I've got 1 Emerald Crab, 3 Conch, 10 Cerith, 10 Nassarius, and I started with 10 Trochus but they have been reproducing so idk how many I have now, plenty of them it seems. I also had a Skunk Cleaner Shrimp but lost him in my recent move.

 

[miPapareef]

75 gallon
1 yellow tang
1 bicolor blenny
2 skunk cleaner shrimp
5 blue leg hermit crabs
1 tuxedo urchin
1 conch
1 huge turban - I don’t know how I got that one but probably miss ID trochas
6 trochas
12 to 1200 cerith that just won’t stop reproducing
The one that does the real work is me with a toothbrush and filter socks once a month

 

[CherBear811]

TROCHEUS are my favorite snail - best cleaning snail for everything but the sandbed EVERRRR; and nassarius snails for the sand bed. I like blue leg hermits for detritus as well, but the little jerks constantly upturn sand bed coral.

 

[sfin52]

My mvp is shreck my seahare. My cerith and nassarius. My ceriths are getting frisky in my tank. Do the eggs hatch and survive or least have an opportunity to survive

 

[Hemmdog]

In my 90 I have 5 nassarius snails, 2 turbos, 4 trochus(now about 300 they bred),3 blue-leg hermits, 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 little conch named Gary. They keep it remarkably clean.

 

[Geebs19]

2 Cleaner shrimp, few trochus, nassaurus, and turbo snails, and a about 10 tiny reef hermits.

 

[madweazl]

Hermits, nassarius snails, ceriths, dwarf ceriths, nerites, and a tiger sand conch. There's a skunk cleaner in there but I'd consider it a vulture vice CuC.

 

[Zuma]

Tiger Conch's are excellent for keeping your substrate/sand clean.

 

[Saveafish]

Cerith and margarita. I run a cool to cold (72-74deg) tank so my margarita snails do great. 2 fat Mexican Trubos in the sump. They are just clumsy so I sumped them.

 

[Script_Kitty]

Just added a sea hair to the cleanup crew of my new tank (went from 30 gallons to a 105).

So far i am loving that guy, he is like a hover vacume cleaner.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Turbo, nassarius, margarita, cerith, astrea and one conch

 

[NY_Caveman]

Tank is a 45 gallon AIO, bare bottom. I find Trochus and Cerith snails to be a great combination to cover most nuisances. As a bonus, they can right themselves. My Trochus reproduce at a ridiculous pace. I currently have some Turbo snails that are bulldosers and too big for my tank, but are true workhorses.

Non-snail helpers include dwarf hermits (red and blue legged), ministars, pods, bristleworms, various other worms and an Emerald Crab.

Of course, as @mcarroll once said, "You are the star of the CUC!"