What do you have as a clean-up crew?

[Batmanjay28]

What verity of a clean-up crew do you have? :grinyes:

How many?

What size tank is it?

Anything negative or positive about your clean-up crew?

Here is mine------

55G reef----
30 blue legged hermits---they try and kill all my snails!!
15 crieth snails
4 large mexican turbos
8 small turbos
sally lightfoot crab---Very good, always busy.
pompom crab......can't find him!!!:eek3:

I feel that I need more of a clean-up crew. Maybe some more verity of inverts that eat all different things would be good.

 

[Ace25]

In my 29G Reef

20+ hermits
4 Nas snails
1 turbo
5 cerith
1 Sally lightfoot
1 cleaner shrimp
1 10" bristle worm
2 Pistol shrimp (don't think they count as cleaners though)

 

[Batmanjay28]

Forget that I had 2 cleaner shrip too!

 

[nycsicktank]

75 gallon
20 cerith
20 nass.
1 blue hermit
3 unknown hermits(very small)

i need more!
hows your turbo snails doing?

 

[joander123]

in my 75g reef i have roughly:
10 mexican turbos
20 astreas
20 dwarf blue leg hermits
10 scarlet reef hermits
2 emerald crabs
and about 7-8 ceriths.

I had about 5 peps too, but i think they became lion fish food =).


Positive- hermits keep the sand a nice bright white.

Negative- lots of fighting over shells and hermit-snail warfare.

 

[Batmanjay28]

Turbos are really good cleaners. Glass, sand, and live rock all day.

The only problem is that my hermits are always trying to kill my turbos....I think it's because their growing out of their shells.

I think I'm going to be getting this invert reef package from saltwaterfish.com. It comes with-------$99---free shipping but a $10 handling fee----
Scarlet Hermit Crab: 20
Blueleg Hermit Crab: 20
Nasssarius Snail: 10
Emerald Crab: 5
Coral Banded Shrimp: 1
Sally Lightfoot: 1
Turbo/Astrea Snail: 20
Cleaner Clam: 2
I'm getting all of this becuase I'm in the process of upgrading my 55F reef to a 90G and I think I need a bigger clean-up crew. What do you guys think? To much for a 90G? Should I just not worry about getting this package?

 

[Ace25]

IMO that is too much. Some of those I wouldn't even put in my reef tank, ie emeralds/coral banded shrimp.

 

[joander123]

sounds like a good crew to me.. personally i dont have any experience with the clams.. but may do well. I believe they are just filter feeders... Coral banded dont clean as well as the skunk cleaner shrimp.. but they still look cool and do some work.

I really like the astrea.. the mexican turbos seem to do OK, but i seem to lose them pretty quickly. People say that they fall off of the glass onto there shells and because they are so big they cant right themselves and they just end up dieing. I have never witnessed this to be honest but i think that it makes sense, and could see it happening. Astreas seem to be really hardy, cheaper, and seem to do work just like the mexicans. Only reason i still have mexicans is because my triggerfish loves to pick the astreas off of the glass, but hes not big enough to pick the mexicans off yet.

Good ammount of hermits there as well... although i would personally recommed cleaning crews from Etropicals.com. You can build your own package there, and if you go over 60 bucks, shipping is FREE. Really free, not like saltwaterfish.com free but you still pay 20 bucks or whatever.

I got my orinanal package from etropicals, and i just replenish it from time to time. I really like the fact that you can build your own. And they have pretty good prices too. check it out and see what you think.

Jay

 

[joander123]

IMO that is too much. Some of those I wouldn't even put in my reef tank, ie emeralds/coral banded shrimp.

I'm not a huge fan of the coral bandeds, but i love the emeralds. Seem to be the only thing that will consistently touch hair algae and do a good job on it. Hermits will pick at it, but they dont do the job the emeralds do. Plus emeralds are larger scavengers, which means they eat more of the left over food for you too =).

On top of that, they are really cool to watch i think.

 

[Ace25]

That actually sounds like a much better way to go. Build your own, save $ and get exactly what you want.

Ya, haven't had a hair algae problem in many years.. but the emerald I tried seemed to think my nice zoas were a good alternative to hair algae.