Best CLEAN UP CREW

[cadillac swang]

what in your opinion would be a good clean up crew for a 80 gallon, i was wondering if i buy theze inverts seperate be benefcial, although i feel more costly!
any suggestions, i forgot that when i upgraded from my 55gallon tank i forgot to upgrade my clean up crew. so i want to start fresh!! give me some ideas please

 

[teen]

scarlet reef hermits, nassarius snails, a few turbo snails, persian sand conch, mexican turbo snails. those are all good choices imo.

 

[bang guy]

I have an unorthodox opinion so feel free to ignore me lol

For Cleanup I like:
Bristle Worms
Cerith Snails
Colonista Snails
Stomatella Snails
Amphipods
Black or Tigertail Cucumbers
and NO hermits.

 

[lovecraft]

I've got a Fighting conch that's a great hard worker for keeping my sand stirred. Also have a Brittle starfish....from what I've read get the regular brittle and not the GREEN Brittle. As a veried addition, though he only kijes to keep the sand stirred around his hideout so far.
I have some snails: cerith and trochus. I think my ceriths do a better job. I have about 6 each.
I have some hermits: scarlets and blue legs, but don't go overboard on their number imho. I run about 6 of each in 46 gallon bow and I think I have a few too many.
I'm looking into a lettuce nudibranch as another algae eater. Possibly a yellow cucumber. Not necessities and I will have to keep an eye on them to not get sucked into a PH. But I think they are pretty cool and will vary my CUC. Of my research they seem to be the "safest" of cukes and nudis. I ordered them from here and it will be my first time with them but from my research I just have to "nudi-proof" my PH's.
Maybe some filter feeders, the yellow cuke is one, feather dusters, filter feeding crabs. From what I've read filter feeders don't "clean" in the sense that your traditional crabs and snails do. But they do remove particles from the water and can supposedly help lower nitrates. In other words I am extremely justifying these filter feeders just because I think they are so dang cool.

I spend more time watching my porcelain crab than I do almost anything else in the tank.

 

[cadillac swang]

hay thanks alot for the feed back
another thing i wanted to add, was i would like to see alot of movement if possible, but would also like to have the littlest crew doing this movement. so which ever are the best that i purchase, looks good, does the job well, and keeps its end of the bargin of keeping my tank clean, i want them, money is not an object. "to me" but to my wife yes. hehhehhe

 

[lovecraft]

I'm guessing here for an 80gal:
A couple of conchs: Fighting or Queens
10 nassarius snails
10-20 hermits Scarlets and blue legs
10-20 snails ceriths or trochus or nerites..i hear turbos are so good at their job they can knock stuff over.

This is a minimum estimate so maybe look into adding more snails if you have bad algae problems later.
Then pick a few specialty critters like stars, other crabs(just keep an eye on them and really find out about them) and definitely some shrimp. For crabs look at sally light foots and emeralds. For shrimp: a cleaner or two and some peppermints. These are just examples, just keep an eye out on if things look/acting aggressive. Get some extra shells for your hermits and that will help them from picking on your snails, but even that's no guarantee.

Ultimately, what you can get in a CUC is whether or not it will be safe with the type of fish you want to keep too.

 

[dogstar]

Originally Posted by Bang Guy
and NO hermits.
I agree, I hate crabs....
Although they can be intertaining, they are preditors.
The best CUC is you. Maintain a healthy system and dont over feed.
IMO, A variety of snails is all that should be added and the life that will naturaly develop from healthy live rock and sand like the pods, worms, tiny starfish, other micro/macro crustations, ect. as Bang said...will do the job just fine. Keeping crabs will only slow down this development because they will prey on many them.

 

[aanthony]

yeah hermits are fun and all, but i just removed one of my big ones, he was probablly the size of a golf ball, but since ive had him hes probably eaten roughly 30 dollars worth of snails, so if you get hermits, stick to smaller ones, but stock up on snails, however i have 3 cleaner shrimp and one cbs, along with 3 crabs (dont know what kind) combine those with about 20 snails, and 20 hermits, all the food gets eaten.

 

[m0nk]

Originally Posted by Cadillac Swang
hay thanks alot for the feed back
another thing i wanted to add, was i would like to see alot of movement if possible, but would also like to have the littlest crew doing this movement. so which ever are the best that i purchase, looks good, does the job well, and keeps its end of the bargin of keeping my tank clean, i want them, money is not an object. "to me" but to my wife yes. hehhehhe
For movement and keeping things nice and clean, I've found Nassarius snails to be one of the best additions to any tank. I have 5 in my 12 gallon, along with some Astrea and Margarita snails, not to mention my cleaner shrimp, and they do a very fine job.

 

[saltyshogun]

The best additon to my clean up crew were a few Mexican Turbo Snails..., In a matter of 2 days they ate up all of the hair algae on the back of my tank and have continued to keep the algae under control.

 

[andy51632]

Has anybody had problems with their emeralds in a tank with no corals? I have seen one of my fairly large emeralds crawl over the top of a turbo snail(nice meal) to get to some small pieces of flake food. Never seen them bother anything. I am taking out all my hermits but wonder if I should keep my emeralds?

 

[jerthunter]

I like hermit crabs and emerald crabs. I prefer zebra hermits or other interesting looking hermits to the cheap blue legs. For snails I have a few nassarius snails and astrea snails.

 

[sjimmyh]

I can tell you what I do NOT like, and a little bit of why
I do not like cucumbers - too much risk in poisoning the tank, even if they are easy to keep.
I do not like starfish - Brittlestars and the like are opportunists. I have experienced them attempting to consume corals and they are known to occasionally try to eat your fish.
I do not like urchins - they tend to really knock stuff around and they can damage coraline algae by scraping it right off the rock.
I do not like emerald crabs - again, they are opportunists. Even though they typically do not damage reef tanks, they are still a crab. I just can't get over this even though most people never have issues with them.
I do not like hermit crabs - BUT i do keep them in the tank in limited numbers because the small species will usually do more good than bad, IMO. I would never have as many as your typical clean up package would sell you for your size tank.

 

[prevwon]

So most of you don't reccommend hermit crabs huh? That's good to know because I was planning on getting about 50 of them...

 

[hefner413]

My mexican turbos seem to do the most cleaning - but they stay on the glass 95% of the time. They sell for 3 each at my lfs. But for some reason, I'll have one die every once in a while - I'm not sure why.
Before I started coral, I had a choc chip star. It was great at cleaning the sand. Now I have coral, it's in my QT. I'm looking to get a conch to replace.

 

[cannonman]

I have a black cucumber that does nothing 24/7 but clean large volumes of sand. I have had one for a year now and will probably always keep one, they can do more cleaning in a few hours than most snails and crabs can in a week. Don't get me wrong, I have the usual clean up crew also, and there is a risk of poisoning a tank when one dies but I tinker with my tank every day and it is fairly unlikely that it could get sick and/or die without me knowing it pretty quick. Only my opinion but I think they are very under-rated.

 

[reefer545]

Dont get hermits (too opurtunistic and often get eaten making them a waste of money) or turbos (they can knock stuff over)
I feel the absolute must haves are:
nass snails
brittle star
sand sifting cucumber
bristle worms
Get feather dusters and other filter feeders that will eat nutrients out of the water too.

 

[bang guy]

Originally Posted by Cannonman
I have a black cucumber that does nothing 24/7 but clean large volumes of sand. I have had one for a year now and will probably always keep one, they can do more cleaning in a few hours than most snails and crabs can in a week. Don't get me wrong, I have the usual clean up crew also, and there is a risk of poisoning a tank when one dies but I tinker with my tank every day and it is fairly unlikely that it could get sick and/or die without me knowing it pretty quick. Only my opinion but I think they are very under-rated.
There really isn't any risk of poisoning with an Atlantic Black or a Tigertail Cucumber unless you're keeping them in a nano tank. They do produce Holothurin but in very small quantity.

 

[mamasky712]

I love my mexican turbo snails. I've got about 10 of them in my 90. I also have 3 emerald crabs, 6 blue leg hermits, and 4 scarlet hermits. I won't but any more hermits in my tank.
I've also got cerith, turbo, cowrie, stomatella (a ton that came on some corals), and nassarius.
We've got a brittle star and 2 serpent stars and our clean up crew is complete. We rarely have algae, our sandbed it turned over, and if there's ever any extra food that the fish don't eat, it's gone in no time.