Cleanup Critters

[Cearbhaill]

How about "turbo" snails? are they a type of one of the snails listed above?

Here is a great article on the various species of Turbo snails.

As far as some of the others- I found my serpent stars to be far too aggressive feeders, and the sea cucumbers just grossed me out too much to keep. I am too afraid of rock slides for sand sifters, and the only crabs I keep are porcelains. I love my shrimps, but love my corals more- and standing there batting shrimp away while a coral is trying to feed just got too time consuming.

It all depends on what other species you are planning to keep. I have a lot of slow feeders like my Fungias, Trachyphyllia, BTA, Tubastreas etc and even with the soda bottle cage things the shrimp were just too relentless about the food.

 

[caz]

How about the little zebra reef crabs? they're hermits with black and white striped legs. I'm thinking of getting a few for my new nano I'm working on.

any opinions?

i would go with some snails. hermits dont seem to do much cleaning. scarlets are nice and leave snails alone though

 

[wastememphis]

Caz... you can't stop them from eating snails, hahaha. In my 65 gallon I'm setting up I'm going to have a variety of snails and a HUGE sand crew possibly 20 nassarius snails, and at least one sand sifting star. Alot of my crabs now are wearing my snail shells, that they killed. And I have crabs that climb the calking on the corners of the tank, so they are crazy... like navy seal crabs.

 

[caz]

lol. i hear that. i have a grave yard of snail shells. i think move tanks or upgrade, im not going to include hermits. although they are cool and fun to watch, they dont do a very good cleanup job

 

[Sregnar35]

I already have a sand sifting star, a fighting conch, and a sea cuke, what else can I get to clean up the algae on my sand bed?

 

[caz]

what about a sandsifting goby? or a lettuce nudibranch?

 

[Sregnar35]

I was thinking of the nudibranch, but will they go on the sand bed? And I'm not so sure a goby would get along too well with my royal gramma?

 

[caz]

how big of a tank? ive never heard of royal grammas being agressive towards gobies, but i have heard of them being aggressive towards other basselets though.