My new Clean up crew

[carey]

Was wondering if anyone had any opinions on a proper cuc for my 29 gallon. 48 lbs of live rock but no fish yet.

Going slow....

Thanks!

 

[classklown90]

few hermits, i realy like the blue legged and electric blue and IME they have both been peaceful (provide extra shells)
some snails:
nassirus-cleaan your sand
nerite-good algae eaters
cerith- eat algae as well
maybe an emerald crab or cleaner shrimp(cleaners are realy cool)

 

[carey]

So far I have:
5 Blue legged hermits
5 Red legged hermits
5 Margarita snails
5 cerith snails

I love watching the hermits wander around, kinda thought they were creepy at first but I kinda like em.

How many more little guys do you think necessary? I'm going with reef setup so I wasnt sure if emerald crabs or shrimps would work. I dont' want any more problems that I can avoid.

 

[carey]

So I figure 10 snails and 10 hermits arent gonna be enough. A fish store today told me I should have 1 snail and crab for each gallon. That would mean I'd need like 60! Is this right? Otherwise the guy at fish store was pretty dead on. Wouldnt sell me anything til he got a water sample. lol

 

[mr_X]

that's not true at all. add inverts a few at a time. you don't need all that they say. it's a marketing ploy that you need massive armies of cleaners. i have kept large tanks with very few snails and crabs and didn't have any trouble at all, and then i've seen others that would buy hundreds of snails and crabs per year and ended up getting out of the hobby because they couldn't beat the algae and poor water quality.
it's all in the husbandry. regular water changes and reasonable stocking/feeding is the way to keep a clean tank. buy snails and crabs because you like to watch them and for diversity. nothing beats a blade and a mag float.

 

[rush]

29 gallons you would need 15 of each

15 hermits and 15 snails

its one CUC per gallon, not one of each

but that is hear/say

i say you have enough right now, maybe add 2-3 more hermits

and 2-3 nassarius snails

 

[carey]

I'm window shopping at reefcleaner.com. What is a fuzzy chiton? Just looking for some different stuff.


ReefCleaners.org | Clean Up Crews and Macro Algae - Fuzzy Chiton*