Cleanup crew ok?

[tigershark]

My tank has been up for about a month now. I tried to re-cycle it with some raw shrimp but my ammonia never got past 0.25 so I guess theres enough bacteria in my tank. Ammonia is now between 0.25 and 0, nitrites .01 and nitrates about 7.5 I think its a diatom bloom now, its reddish/brown algae covering everything so I think I can add my cleanup crew now. I was thinking about the following, does it look ok?
12 cerith snails
12 astrea snails
12 scarlet hermits
24 nassarius snails ( to keep the sandbed stirred
4 or 6 mythrax crabs ( I think these are emerald crabs)
Any feedback would be great.

 

[clarkiiboi]

PLEASE dont add anything until your Ammonia and TrItes are at 0, and then give it a few days or weeks for extra measure, by then your TrAtes should of lowered. If you add anything now it would be so stressed and most likely would not make it. Also when you do go to add a cleanup crew, start small---make sure its going to work out. HTH

 

[jja]

Also that seems to be a bit excessive-48 snails plus 12 hermits and 6 emeralds in a 60 gal. If I am reading this right you also have shrimp to include?

 

[attml]

IMO, when you are past the diatom algae phase of cycling your tank I would say you are probably OK to add some snails and hermitts. Wait for the nitrates to get in the .25 -35 range. Not to be disrespectful to the previous posters, but if you wait for all of your levels to hit zero to start adding inhabitants to your tank you will have an empty tank for a while. Having some nitrates in your tank when adding inhabitants can actually be good becuse it will help convert nitrites created by the increased bio-load of the new inhabitants to harmless compounds. If you let your nitrates get to zero, your system has to work harder to reproduce them to counter a bio-load increase from new inhabitants taking longer for your levels to come down with the inhabitants in it. The key is to add a few snails and hermitts to test your conditions. If they have no problems for a week to a week and a half then you can add a few more inverts and fish slowly. If you add a bunch of anything it will send the balance your system has been working to create out of whack and you will lose inhabitants. Again, this is my opinion so take it for what is worth. Good luck!

 

[saltyrich]

I know it seems like the thing to do, but I'd never recommend adding a whole cleanup crew at once. There always seems to be a significant die-off. I suggest diversifying your crew with multiple types of hermits, crabs, and snails. Each type will be of differing sizes and occupy different niches in the system, making the overall crew more effective. I also suggest adding a handful of crew members at a time. By doing this, you'll slowly work up to acheiving a balance. Your crew will keep your tank clean, and your tank will produce just enough algae (along with fetrious from fish feeding) to keep the crew from starving. I think many of us on the board have went out and gotten a big cleanup crew all at once only to have several of them die after completely cleaning up the algae and starving to death.