Crabs or snails???

[slouiscar]

I have a 29g, with 35lbs of live rock. I am a rookie and this is a fairly new FOWLR set up... down the road I hope to upgrade to a semi reef. I began with CC and switched last month to sand.
One of the first purchases from my LFS was a half dozen blue leg hermits as a clean up crew for my CC. They didn't do a hell of a job so I added a dozen turbo's a few weeks later. Things were cool for a few weeks. Niether kept my CC looking up to par so I figured all the +'s mean I should switch to sand... so I did.
Now the hermits keep my sandbed nice and turned over. They even went through and ate the hair algea that was beginning to show up. I thank them for that. My sandbed looks great.
The Snails keep algae off my rocks.
So I would love to hold on to both the crabs and the snails BUT every couple of days another snail falls victim to a crab feeding frenzy. Any suggestions?
It seems inevitible. I am thinking of just letting it run its course. When the snails are gone then they're gone (4 down 8 to go).
Will the system be OK with a half a dozen blue legs and no snails? I am considering adding a couple of scarlets to supplement the cleanup from the lost snails. Should I remove the blues and try to keep scarlets and turbos?

 

[lutz493]

You could go just crabs, there is no rule that says you must keep any certain type of clean-up crew in your tank.
Blue Legs are cheap but, they are agressive and can kill eachother and your snails.
Alot of people use Scarlet Leg Hermits - They are more money however, far less agressive compared to the Blue Legs.
I pulled all my blue legs out a long time ago and just went with my scarlets.
I seldom see an empty snail shell in the tank and next to no fightining between them. Two of them move around the tank together.
This mebbe a better way for you to go - Well worth the extra bit of money if your replacing your snails every couple months.
Also - You may want to buy 2-3 of the bigger snails they run around $4-5ea where I am but they do an awesome job.

 

[spicyballs]

in my main tank i have blue legs, dwarf reds, astrea turbo snails, bumble snails, cerith, and nassarius snails. occassionally i see an empty shell, but usually it's the cerith... so far i haven't experienced much snail deaths. do you have the astrea turbo snails? the coneshaped ones? you have to keep an eye on those guys... if they fall off the rock work or glass and land upside down, they're very vulnerable since it can be hard for them to right themselves up. in that case, yes a hermit could make a meal out of it.. they're opportunist... but imo, the turbo's are by far the best algae controling organisms in my tank out of the cleaning crew. the hermits are more scavengers, as well as the nassirius.. i'd try to keep both.. everyone has their part... def snails though..