Cleaner crew- Are yours doing their job?

[Salty_Northerner]

My crew consists of cerith, Astera, trocus and bumblebee snails, cerith and Nassarius snails. Scarlet hermits and blue legged hermit crabs. I really don't have a favorite as they are all my favorites. The Nassarius are the zombie snails that plow there way out of the sand when I feed the fish. The bumblebees have a mushroom fetish and constantly hangs out under my blue mushroom. But the hermits are fun to watch.

I feel sorry for the hermits as when I'm feeditthe fish they all go nuts as I'm sure you're starving. I will spot feed them once a week with some meaty food. The cuc keep everything spotless to a point and I find they are still doing their job but would probably prefer to be in a dirtier tank. At night I see the pods just littering the back glass going their thing. I find them all do a fantastic job and am happy to house them all.

 

[Jesss]

We have a small tank and had a lot of issues with hair algae. We only have some Astera snails, blue legged hermit crabs, and a cleaner shrimp in our tank.

After reading through this thread I'm definitely going to look into get some conch for the sand.

 

[woodyarmadillo]

Mexican turbos are excellent with GHA but quickly mow it down and starve.

I was wondering about that. They are only a week old. Guess I’ll keep an eye out and try to pull it when it dies.

 

[CWalters]

They prefer hotter water. I had my last 3-4 for over a year. Current one is almost as big as my palm and going on 4-5 months.

What is considered "hotter"? I have my tank at 77

 

[doubleshot00]

What is considered "hotter"? I have my tank at 77

They like warmer waters 79-81

 

[exnisstech]

I've been guilty of seriously under stocking my CUC for years. I always thought people were crazy when they said to add 100 snails to a 75g tank. Fast forward, I set up a new tank in February using dry rock and bare bottom. After the cycle (using fritz 900) just as soon as diatoms started to appear I added a cleaner crew from reef cleaners. I don't even know how many snails are in the tank now as I even added some more. I have snails all over but algae is being kept at bay. It's was a mix of nerite, cerith, dwarf cirith, astrea and trochus I believe along with some blue legged hermits.
I have mixed feelings about the hermits because they seem to spend more time fighting each other and killing snails than they do eating algae I also have 3 fairly large turbos and 2 tuxedo urchins that I move back and forth between tanks and sumps as needed to keep them fed. I tried sea hares but they didn't survive long even with algae present.
Not really what people think of when they talk about CUC but I love my spaghetti worms and bristle worms along with my hundreds of micro Brittle stars also.

 

[shakacuz]

my one fighting conch is definitely a slacker compared to my strawberry/tiger conch. hermits are always on the move/cleaning/eating, and snails seem to do okay (replacing all of my hermits, except 3, with snails. keeping only scarlet red, electric blue, and halloween hermits). they knock over any of my loose objects in the tank and snails don't.

thinking of getting 1 lettuce nudibranch as well. they look so cool to me and is just a plus that they aide, in their own way, with cleaning the tank.

 

[paragrouper]

Astrea snails
Turbo snails
Trochus snails
Cerith snails
bumblebee snails
nassarius snails
emerald crab.

All are pretty active and they absolutely limit the amount of cleaning I need to do on a weekly basis.

p.s. I am aware of at least one Bristleworm (and where there’s one…)

 

[o2manyfish]

I am not usually active with my clean-up crew. My last tank was setup for over 20 years, so keeping track of snail and crabs and such is not a high priority.

When we setup the new 750g in September we started with 1/2 fully mature live rock and 1/2 acid bathed dry rock. Almost 1000 lbs total.

After a month the beautiful new 750g tank had the ugly browns growing on the bottom (bare Bottom) of the tank and on some of the acid bathed rock.

I'm not a fan of hermits, I think usually they become food for my wrasses. And yet without buying them but every 5 years or so, whenever I clean a sump, or a frag tank I come across a few that are still alive and well.

We also have (2) 180g frag tanks outdoor in the sunlight.

To slow the ugly algae for the 750 we bought 100 turbos, 150 Astrea , 100 Cerith and 3 Sally Lightfoot crabs.

We dumped all the snails in a pile in one corner of the tank. And it was really neat to see how over the next 5 days they spread from that single pile and as they spread the bottom of the tank turned crystal clear.

Now 6 months later the bottom of the tank is clear of algae but the coraline has taken a strong hold.

With 3 viewable panels (2) 4x2.5 and (1) 10x2.5' There is alot of viewable acrylic. Sometimes there are as many as 50 snails on the glass. But they don't do enough to keep the glass clean.

Now that spring is here the algae in the outdoor frag tanks has gone off the rail. The frag tanks each have about 50 snails, and one tank has a 15" sea cucumber. But 3 different types of algae are flourishing. And when I say flourishing I mean chaeto morph in 1 week goes from smaller than a football to enough to fill a kitchen trash can bag. Week after week.

With the Chaeto overgrowing the tank so quickly it's allowing a hair algae to grow on the frag racks and the bottom of the tank which normally the tangs keep under control.

Last Thursday we added 100 turbos, 50 Astera, 4 urchins and 4 very small blue dot sea hares to the two frag tanks.

But I think we have to look beyond snails and crabs for a clean up crew. Tangs, Rabbitfish, Fox Face are all doing constant work at 'cleaning' up our tanks.

Our 1500g system is made up of 750g display, (2) 180g Frags tanks, 140g skimmer tank and 270g sump. They are all connected to the same sump, and a single pump. So the water is the same throughout. The display tank is lit by (12) Radion G6 Pros and sunlight on the right end. The frag tanks are lit by direct sunlight from sunrise to sunset. The skimmer tank gets sunlight through a sunshade and the sump gets indirect filtered sunlight.

Each tank obviously has different livestock and a different assortment of clean up crew. The skimmer tank is over run with aptasia and bubble algae. It only has clown fish in it.

The sump tank is clear of any nuisance algae other than coraline and what grows on the viewing panel after a month - It has Molly's, Tangs, Clowns, Copper Band and a Magnificent fox face.

The Frag tanks - Well we know about the chaeto and hair algae - currently - But for years have been algae problem free with a massive number of Molly's and tangs. And yet on the underside of some of the large pcs of coral there is bubble algae growing.

The display tank - It had 2 aptasia which I nuked by hand just last night. Has some bubble algae buried deep within some colonies. But has not problem algae - Snails, Sally Lightfoot and 15 tangs.

A clean up crew is to take care of things that can become problematic - Our first thought is to algae. But what about Aptasia, Majano, Flat Worms.

In our 750g we have the 15 tangs and 100's of snails and sally lightfoots for algae, for planaria we have yellow coris, melanarus, Leopard Wrasse, Mandarins, and Springeri Damsels --- None of which seem to want to clean up the planaria.

For AEFW we have Springeri Damsels and Dragon Faced Pipefish - But they don't really do their jobs either.

But we have to think about the tangs, Rabbit fish, Copperband butterflies, Martensi Butterfly, specific damsels and wrasses that are all important to having a robust clean up crew to clean up after all the different nuisance items in our reef systems.

Dave B

 

[JohnD4g]

Trochus Snails
Conchs
Tuxedo Urchins..... awesome algae grazers, but they can be bulldozers on small corals.
Mexican Turbo Snails

Not a fan of crabs. I found they tend to prey on snails for their shells.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Trochus Snails
Conchs
Tuxedo Urchins..... awesome algae grazers, but they can be bulldozers on small corals.
Mexican Turbo Snails

Not a fan of crabs. I found they tend to prey on snails for their shells.

The crabs I suggest are the tiny carribean blue leg hermits which stay tiny

 

[RedReefer]

Once a year, I replenish snails and hermit crabs. My wrasse will eat a few every once in a while, but they usually need to be replenished yearly.

 

[TokenReefer]

Are they doing their job?

Yup

 

[GARRIGA]

Urchin was a beast until it perished. Nassarius supposed to eat detritus but not seeing evidence of that. Margaritas great on glass algae. Aestrea best on hair algae before strands get long. End of day need NoPox to solve algae although have now red turf which I’m liking. Algae technically are a clean up crew since they process waste that would accumulate and remove co2 raising pH

 

[j.falk]

NO! After ordering a bunch of snails from Reefcleaners to keep my aquarium glass clean...I now have to scrape the glass every other day. Before that it was once a week...

I also ordered an emerald crab to help clean up some of the hair algae growing on my rocks and hot dang that thing is an eating machine! It's almost completely cleaned an entire rock in 3 days time...but it also ate some of the unique macro algae that I had growing on the rock too...which is a bummer.

 

[jpughmom757]

This time of the year , we encounter more algae due to warmer temps and longer days with window light from the sun.

Many of us have various snails and other cleaner crew.

What is in your cleaner crew and Are they doing their job?
Which is your favorite cleaner and why?

My best workers are astrea snails followed by cerith. I have no algae and these snails are always on surfaces and glass, mainly cerith on the glass. I also have a few Carribean blue leg Hermits

Often we have the right snails , but in some cases, algae can grow so fast that they cant keep up with the rate of growth of algae. Also, when we use the term cleaner crew, we automatically think of snails. There are other cleaners , afterall- their name is just that- to clean. Some others are:
Crabs
Shrimps
conchs
Urchins
Starfish
hermit crabs

My konch snail (Alf) puts in that work!!

 

[killer2001]

Hermit crabs along with bristleworms are the MVP for cleaning up nuisance algae in my refugium.

 

[GARRIGA]

Hermit crabs along with bristleworms are the MVP for cleaning up nuisance algae in my refugium.

Been trying to find worms for years. My nassarius arent getting the job done on detritus and figure the worms might.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Been trying to find worms for years. My nassarius arent getting the job done on detritus and figure the worms might.

For detritus- Peanut worms and spaghetti worms do a great job

 

[NoohpyT]

Conchs are often overlooked and very good bulldozers with algae

they're also good at bulldozing over my sand dwelling corals LOL