Freakin A. Cleanup Crew question.

[hairtrigger]

Dang it all to you- know- where. I was checking out the various hermits for my cleanup crew. The thing is... half the posts I check all contradict each other. Half the people say hermits are horrible for reefs, and will trash them.
The other half says hermits are great and will eat up all the fish crap.
Ok... I know this isn't mathmatically correct... but there are some other opinions thrown in there.
They say Blue legs are horrible... scarletts are safe. SWF sells blue legs way cheaper than scarletts... is this why?
I trust the reef borard more than anything... so PLEASE, help me out with this.
I NEED a good clean up crew... but I dont want one to destroy my reef. Ugh.

 

[entice59]

my hermits completely avoid the fish crap... THATS THE REASON I BOUGHT THEM!!!! AHHH i feel so used....
Blue legs are more aggressive and have crappy shells compared to scarlets.. thats all i know
at the store i go to ... blue legs 1 dollar 6 for $5 / 3 dollars for scarlets 3 for $10
i would say get a cuke but then they are poisonus, so how about a bristle star?

 

[jja]

I can only tell you how they do in my tank but I have both scarlett and blue and they have not harmed anything in my tank outside of a couple snails and I do have several corals. It's probably diff. in every tank. My lcfs has spiny urchins in their reef tank but when I put him in mine he ate a chunk off a finger leather and a ton of corraline algae even they are supposedly reef safe. But so far I have had the hermits for probably 6 months and have not had any problems.

 

[entice59]

oh man i just bought a daisy polyp rock, would the hermits eat and destroy the rock i just bought?

 

[thomas712]

About all any of us can do is give you our own opinions based on our own separate experience here.
If you look at the websites and those who sell these hermits for profit, you will always find them represented in the best possible light. If you ask 100 aquariusts there opinions you may very well get 100 different aswers.
I have had both blue leg and scarlet hermits, and one that was called an electric blue hermit. The electric blue was a bully and did not like the scarlets, he personally took two of the biggest scarlets and went to war with them and won and each of the scarlets were bigger than the electeric blue. I have seen the regular blues war with each other but never kill each other. The scarlets to me seem to be the more peaceful. I have watched them for hours as they clean the rocks in places where snails cant go, in fact I have seen them clean the snails before. I have never seen them attack corals or healthy fish or do any damage to my system that I would not allow done.
As far as cleanup crew pakages, go for a small one, most are too large IMO, so just try a hand full and judge for your self. In this way they will always have food and a job to do. If you feel you need more after that then you can always increase the numbers.
Thomas

 

[hairtrigger]

Tom, I hear you on that. That's what I am looking for though. I want to compare the many opinions. Maybe from that, I can correlate which might offer the best success for me. Right now, it seems to be the scarletts.
I'd like to buy a small cleanup crew like you suggested... but instead of most being too big for my tank... they are too small. These janitors are going in a 200 gallon tank. That's part of the reason I am researching it so much. Once something goes in this tank... there's no catching it again.
Y'all mentioned brittle stars. I have one in there now. How many are recommended per gallon, or however many gallons? I don't wanna know for my tank... because I might combo some cleaners up.
Also, how adept are brittles at cleaning up?
Now, I know cleaners eat detrius like wasted fish food... but do they eat actual fish crap. That's what I really want.
Is there anything that actually does that?

 

[foulbrew]

I have never heard of either Scarlet or Blue Leg Hermits hurting corals. My experience is consistent with that.
I have heard of some hermits attacking snails and other hermits, bluelegs being the most aggressive. My experience is consistent with that. The attrition rate I've experienced of a snail or crab a month is well within what I consider reasonable (crabs being crabs). I have never actually seen one of my crabs actually kill anything, however. They could just be cleaning up an already dead animal.
My general impression of both is favorable, they will climb on anything and anyone to get a meal. They will wrestle amongst themselves but they rarely, if ever, kill. They will stir up the sand, but will not decimate your pod population.
All in all they put in a good days work for the money. I do agree with Thomas that the packages tend to be oversized. I also think more of these animals are lost due to poor acclimation practises and being introduced prematurely into tanks than have been killed by predation.
I do not think of my cleanup crew as the primary consumer of fish waste. I rely on good current, a good protien skimmer, bacteria, a 5" DSB and the miniature critters in my rock and DSB. I addition I make sure I do not overstock the tank.

 

[hairtrigger]

Thanks for the assistance foulbrew. That's a great analysis. Deffinitly helps me make up my mind. I agree with you on the clean up. My DSB is just getting established though. Plenty of rock. I just want to make sure I get the right guys. I probably will shy away from the package deals because they have some things I don't want. But, whatever I get, it's going to have to be lots of them.

 

[hairtrigger]

Wow Nolo, I didnt know snails could handle cleanup on their own. But, I am with you. I think I'd like to see some hermits tooling around the tank. That's why I am leaning towards scarletts. Less aggressive, but still do the job.

 

[debbers]

I haven't begun with corals yet, but I do have some "hermit experience".
In my little tank I have 4 blue legs and 3 scarlets. I have not seen *any* aggression out of any of the crabs. The most violent thing I've seen so far is the clean-up of shrimp molt, and the devouring of a snail that fell and could not upright itself and looked pretty dead anyway.
My blue legs are much more active than the scarlets... they are always on the move all over the sand. The scarlets hang out more on the LR and I don't see them being as busy. The blue legs do a much better job cleaning things up in my tank.
The best cleaner of all my critters, though, is my cleaner shrimp! And what a character he is!!
I know everyone's experiences are different, so here's my $0.02 worth! HTH!
~D~

 

[quazi]

I got rid of my hermits. They tend to knock over corals, particularly frags. I find snails, worms, shrimp and stars work as well, and do not knock so many small rocks and frags around.

 

[bahamianme]

What is a "cumcumber" and what does it do?

 

[entice59]

basically its a slug, pretty big and sometimes colorful, doesnt look like nudibranches, its looks like a cucumber,it eats poop, but is poisonous, it releases its toxion when stressed or dead.... beware.. BEWARE!!!!!!
anyways
is there a snail that eats poop/debris, not left of over food...