What do I need to get a clean up crew?

[makofury]

Hello, my tank will is a month old, and has had damsels in it for 3 weeks now, I tested my water every week, each week my water tests come out perfect. I also have 60lbs on Nature's Ocean Live Sand in there right now, which is probably helping out. I don't have any live rock, but I keep hearing about clean up crews, I'm wondering what exactly I would need to get one of these "crews", do they need to be fed a special food, are they easy to keep? My dad wants peaceful fish which sort of kills my idea for triggers, so that's why Im looking into a clean up crew. Any information about them will be appreciated. Thanks!
MakoFury

 

[jamos6]

What do u have in your tank besides the sand?
i dont have a clean-up crew in my tank because i have triggers and angels which will eat the inverts. I do have live rock in it though the fish kinda graze on it all day so if u do choose the agressive tank dont buy the expensive live rock with a bunch of feather dusters and coral because the triggers will eat it.

 

[templar]

Clean up crews are pretty much maintenance free as they "clean-up" after the other fish, meaning they eat any left over foods and fish waste. The basics of a clean up crew are hermit crabs and snails, and you can get "fancy" and add other guys like various other types of crabs and shrimps. This all has to be in a non-aggressive tank tho otherwise fish like triggers will devour your inverts. Look on this site under inverts or package deals you'll see some great examples of clean-up crews.

 

[makofury]

Yeah, they look interesting, but do I need live rock for them to graze on? Or can they live with just my nature's ocean live sand, because my other decorations are just dead coral and lava rocks. So is this good enough to sustain a clean up crew? Thanks.
MakoFury

 

[templar]

Without live rock I wouldn't use as many as they reccomend in those package deals, and I'd wait for the tank to start getting some of the "brown algae" which usually takes a month, that's when I added my cleanup crew.