Is my clean up crew to small?

[Patroklos]

This is sort of a newbie question so i am putting it in the newbie forum

I currently have a 65gal tank with the specifics noted in my sig, it has been running for four months and this is what I have for a CUC:

10 Astraea snails
10 nassarius snails
2 Emerald Crabs
2 Electric Blue Hermits (medium)
2 Halloween Hermits (medium)
3 Blue Leged Hermits (small)
1 Scarlet Hermit (small)
1 Dwarf Zebra Hermit (small)
1 Black Brittle Star (small)

I am currently coming out of an extreme hair algea bloom which I am fighting mostly through starving my fish and doing a 25% PWC every day (!). I am wondering if perhaps a more robust CUC might help share the burden, I would love to make it to happy hour for once instead of rushing home to get enough RO/DI water made.

So, can/should my tank be supporting a larger CUC?

 

[melosu58]

More livestock is basically a bandaid solution. Best to find out what`s causing it and remove the source. When you are doing PWC`s are you siphoning out as much hair algea as possible?

 

[Patroklos]

Yeah, at one point I was taking out a pound of hair algea a day. I found that odd because I have added less than a pound in food total to the tank since it started four months ago! In any case, by spending every waking moment doing water changes I have the problem under control. I am just curious as to, in general, whether that list above is about right for a 65g reef tank.

Oh, and I forget:

1 Fighting Conch.

 

[pat8you]

Seems like a good sized cuc for that tank to me. Adding more won't help your hair algae problem though. Not very many things i can think of that would even touch hair algae except possibly a scorpas tang or some rabbit fish. Both of which would be to big for a 65 gal. Like melosu said just gonna find the source of the nutrients and take it out that way. I've read your other posts and your doing the right things. Just takes a while to get rid of.

 

[Patroklos]

I wich I knew the source, as far as I can tell they are magically appearing out of thin air. I literally add nothing to the tank, my fish are going to start starving to death soon!

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

You could easily double the number of snails in your tank. As others have said, it won't help the hair algae, but it won't hurt either.