Algae / Detritus Cleaning Crew - Snails vs. Hermit Crabs

skiffalope

skiffalope

Washed up on the Reef
May 15, 2006
63
0
0
Riverside, CA
Recently, I heard that hermit crabs will sometimes "Shell Jack" Turbos for the shell. With that in mind, I'm considering reevaluating my long term plans for my tank. I plan to use the following creatures (eventually) to help manage the algae and detritus in my tank. These are in addition to live rock and sand.

80 Hermit Crabs
40 Turbos
30 Nassarius Snails
20 Cerith Snails
2 Abalone
4 Lettuce Nudibranch
5 Peppermint Shrimp
1 Emerald Crab
1 Sally Lightfoot
3 Fancy Serpert Sea Stars
3 Sand Sifting Sea Stars
2 Tiger Tail Sea Cucumbers
3 Burgandy Sea Stars

There is some wiggle room here, may be some different crabs or shrimp. I also plan to add a Lawnmower Blenny and Six Line Cleaner Wrasse for other maintenance. But the bulk of my tank cleaning was coming from these guys.

Any thoughts on this configuration. Mainly this is a snails vs. crabs question. Any experience or recommendations out there would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
dorkfish is right.




also, that is a huge clean up crew. how big of a tank are we talking?
make sure to feed your LMB algae sheets so he wont starve. and make sure you buy one that will eat them!
dont buy a cleaner wrasse. Unless you have a humongous tank with tons and tons and tons of fish for them to pick parasites off of, they will starve. They are not a fish that is suitible for the home aquarium.
oh, i jsut read it again... did you mean a six line wrasse? or a cleaner wrasse? a 6 line will do fine, but they wont help with detritus, they do however, eat all sorts of small parts of your cleanup crew like pods and bristle worms. But some also eat problem critters like flatworms.
 
fishieness said:
dorkfish is right.




also, that is a huge clean up crew. how big of a tank are we talking?
make sure to feed your LMB algae sheets so he wont starve. and make sure you buy one that will eat them!
dont buy a cleaner wrasse. Unless you have a humongous tank with tons and tons and tons of fish for them to pick parasites off of, they will starve. They are not a fish that is suitible for the home aquarium.
oh, i jsut read it again... did you mean a six line wrasse? or a cleaner wrasse? a 6 line will do fine, but they wont help with detritus, they do however, eat all sorts of small parts of your cleanup crew like pods and bristle worms. But some also eat problem critters like flatworms.
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I was thinking of the Common or Four Line Cleaner Wrasse. I do plan to have fish in this tank. But mostly fish that will be compatible with the corals I'm planning on adding (long term). However, I was under the impression that this Wrasse would eat things like mysis shrimp in lieu or regular parasite action.

This is an 80g tank that will eventually house about 120# of Live Rock, several fish and various corals. I'm building slowly and trying to balance my miniecosystem carefully. I do think this is a large crew too, but I've been reviewing recommendations from various books and sites and this crew should be pretty good. However, none of them mention that hermit crabs will shell jack. I just added some extra shells and the hermit crabs I do have all did trades. So, that tells me I need to add some shells before I go full bore.

Do you think I should trim this back? Based on my readings, this should cover algae control, aerating the SB, and handling leftover food and other detritus.
 
Cleaner wrasses rarely live more than a few months in captivity, wich is why you shouldn't buy them.

Even if yours does live, the LFS will order another one in to replace it, wich will most likely die in someone elses tank.
 
unless you are feeding TONS of extra food, you realy dont need that much. and the nudis, if not sucked up by your powerheads, will die probalby form competition with all those snails, and i dont htink you even need that much.


so now i REALY dont get it.... are you lookign to get a fourline wrasse, a cleaner wrasse, or a six line wrasse?! I have never heard of a 4 line cleaner but it doesnt mean they are not out there. Plus the 4 and the 6 lines will clean problem creatures so maybe there is whaere the confusion is coming in. And some cleaners will take to prepared foods, but very few will. And there arent going to be a lot of parasites for him to eat. only if you have ick, but that eventualy dies if it doesnt kill yoru fish first.
 
fishieness said:
unless you are feeding TONS of extra food, you realy dont need that much. and the nudis, if not sucked up by your powerheads, will die probalby form competition with all those snails, and i dont htink you even need that much.


so now i REALY dont get it.... are you lookign to get a fourline wrasse, a cleaner wrasse, or a six line wrasse?! I have never heard of a 4 line cleaner but it doesnt mean they are not out there. Plus the 4 and the 6 lines will clean problem creatures so maybe there is whaere the confusion is coming in. And some cleaners will take to prepared foods, but very few will. And there arent going to be a lot of parasites for him to eat. only if you have ick, but that eventualy dies if it doesnt kill yoru fish first.
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Actually, based on Dorkfish, I think I'll drop the cleaner wrasse and just use the shrimp. They may be redundant, but I'm looking to build a reef tank that is very close to self sustaining or at least make sure that everyone gets along. As for the snails, I'd be happy to cut back that number of snails. However, you didn't say anything about the hermits. That seems like a lot of hermits to me.

I'll probaby cut the number of snails in half and see how the tank goes for several months at this level. Of course, I'm moving up to this level over the course of a few months.

About the nudis, I heard that power heads will kill them. However, I also heard that they stay near the bottom of the tank. Which should be far enough away from my power heads (except for my filter intakes).

Oh well, I'll need to tweak this as I go along.
 
nudis will crawl on the glass and live rock. It is the cukes that will stay at the bottom. Lettice nudies eat algae, and there isnt a lot on the sand.
and when is aid your clean up crew was realy large, i was talking everything, you dont need that many hermits either.


PS: something else i jsut noticed, you said 3 burgany starfish. By any change would you be refering to the Linkia or Formia stars? You probably will not be able to sustain one, nevermind 3. they graze on live rock and eat the bacteria located on it.
 
fishieness said:
nudis will crawl on the glass and live rock. It is the cukes that will stay at the bottom. Lettice nudies eat algae, and there isnt a lot on the sand.
and when is aid your clean up crew was realy large, i was talking everything, you dont need that many hermits either.


PS: something else i jsut noticed, you said 3 burgany starfish. By any change would you be refering to the Linkia or Formia stars? You probably will not be able to sustain one, nevermind 3. they graze on live rock and eat the bacteria located on it.
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Well, I am only adding these guys gradually. If they maintain balance at a lower number, I'll stop there.

As for the Burgandy, it is not not Linkia. This one is supposed to eat meaty items and tablet based food. I may not get it though if I can live with less. I'll let you know as this progresses.
 
I don't know man. Personally I think that your aquarium will be one big cleaning system. I also think that the crabs will tend to fight with each other quite a lot (especially when they are little). I am really not sure that you need 90! snails and 80! hermits in a 80g tank.

I would probably go with at most 20 Turbos and 15 of the other snails and about 15 hermits. 9 stars are way too many too....

Also, are you planning on having any fish in there???? Because the hermits may attack the fish when they are asleep. This is because if you have so many cleaning buddies, there may be no sufficient food for everyone...

That is my personal opinion thou...
 
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