do i need 100 snails and crabs?

[king kole]

i'm setting up a 90 reef tank,the lfs says reef cleaner crew should be 100 plus . if this is so what should i get? mostly colony polyps few lps and small oeaceful fish transfered from smaller tank that went down. this is expensive so i need a little advice.

 

[bpd]

Use this as a guide
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11...ot_parent_id=4

 

[scopus tang]

Most sources recommend a minimum of 1 member of a clean-up crew per gallon, I actually run mine a little higher even than that. If your adding a clean-up crew I strongly advise checking out online sites such as this one or even googling clean-up crew - I usually find online sources to be about 1/3 the cost or more of our LFS (even after I get my 20% discount). Usually even with the cost of shipping and shipping loss, its worth buying online.

 

[king kole]

thanks i know the basic formula. iwas wondering if i should deviate for 3 to 4 " SB and will the banded shrimp most pacs include mess with my exsisting cleaner shrimp and mex turbo neccesary?

 

[emm0909]

Your cleanup crew is also algae control. Your skimmer is algae control as well. If you have a really aggressive skimmer you do not need the 1 to 1.5 janitors per gallon.
Get a good mixture (40) of Cerith snails, Nerite snails and a couple margarita snails. And get about half as many (20) Mexican Red Leg Hermit Crabs. They are the best hermits. That combined with a real aggressive skimmer will do you fine.

 

[scopus tang]

Sorry! Wasn't trying to tell you something you already knew

Anyway IMO you should stick with the formula even with a DSB; I run between 3 and 6 inches in all my reef tanks, and try to keep a full clean-up crew of snails and hermits in all of them. I find it makes a huge difference in the occurance of diatom and other algae blooms. I personally don't consider a banded coral shrimp to be a valid part of a clean-up crew - they'll eat large floating food particles - but if you don't overfeed and leave large particles around shouldn't really be an issue. Also when they get larger they can become very aggressive - killing other shrimps, hermits, and even small, nonaggressive fish. Clean-up crew to me means snails (nass. cerith, turbos) and hermit crabs (I prefer red-legs; scarlets are territorial and aggressive and will kill other hermits, and what you get as blues is totally unpredictable). Tiny starfish and brittle stars will also help with this process if you can find them.

 

[king kole]

thanks EMM099 and Scopus Tang thats exactly the feed back i needed! Oh and Scopus i to find snail and crab threads a laughing matter!

 

[king kole]

thanks EMM099 and Scopus Tang thats exactly the feed back i needed! Oh and Scopus i too find snail and crab threads a laughing matter!