55g clean up crew..what do you think?

[chadman]

5 nassaruius snails
10 mexican turbos
2 or 3 cleaner shrimps
25 hermits
5 emeralds
1-2 lawnmower blennies

 

[masivemunkey]

I would recommend that you start out small and work your way up. If you don't have much algae then lots of your critters will end up dying of starvation so sometimes its better to buy 5 or so at a time and add more until you think that you have enough.
Also with that many hermits it might be better to get the scarlet variety since they are know to be more docile and are less likely to kill their hermit brothers or snails.

 

[chadman]

it is a new tank though so there is plendy of debris to pick at on the lr still...fish will be being added at the same time so we will start feeding so i think they should eat....there is a tiny bit of hair algae forming on the glass so i want to get a few snails in there

 

[frankthetank]

I recommend staying away from the blue leg hermit. They are aggressive in nature and will kill your hermits and snails. Stick with the beautiful scarlet hermit crab, though more expensive at first... far cheaper in the long run after the blues munch down on your other clean up crew.

 

[skipperdz]

i dont believe you can get turbos at this time. i heard tehy were endangered and werent for sale (lfs) the nassaruius snails hide underneith the sand and come up for feeding time. when tehy do...sometimes the hermits attack them and i have to physically seperate them ( and they are scarlets ) so with all those hermits id stay away from the snails...or get teh snails and no hermits.

 

[masivemunkey]

Also, I forgot to mention this, in Marine Invertebrates by Ronald L. Shimek he recommends not to get more than 1 hermit crab per 10 gallons if you are doing a reef tank. I've also read that some corals can become damaged from the hermits walking on them. Some people have had great success with large numbers of the hermits though so I don't know what to believe. Something to think about at least.

 

[chadman]

in my 30g i have blue legs and scarlets which have been fine for over a year....i also have a few mexican turbos a few nassarius snails and a couple emeralds and no one fights....but then again i have damsels which i cannot get out of my tank and they don't fight with anyone either...i gave the tank a little talk a year ago and told everyone to get along...and they listened