CuC for 150g?

[Hellion179]

REALLY need to get this setup ASAP. Its a 150g long tank. The tank is fully cycled and I have three small fish in it. After the initial diatom outbreak after the tank was cycled, I've noticed hair algae growing on pieces of LR that broke off when setting up the tank(they're on the sand bed). The rock itself is great. Also the sand has areas where it's discolored and it looks like an off color....not cyano..but some algae certainly...it's not clumpy..it's hard to describe.

What would you suggest? Whomever I order from I'd hope they sell conches. I've read nothing but positives about how awesome they are at keeping the sandbed clean.

For flow, I have 2 Koralia 7s(40%-80%) and 2 Koralia 1s(50-100%) with an alternating pattern on a wavemaker 4. I have approximately 3-400# of LR in the display and about 75# in the sump. I do a 20g water change weekly, run phosguard and carbon in bags in the sump. All coral and fish look good...just don't want this algae to become a problem. The sandbed seems like my biggest issue atm

[phantomg23]

reefcleaners.org

email him with details like size and problem and he can hook you up. extremely cheap and a great guy

[cloak]

None?

If you can keep it clean with the "least" amount of JANITORS, your KOOL...

[Hellion179]

I've got 3-4 hermits in there now. But now that I have established waste in there I'd like to setup something to keep it as clean as it can.

[crsswift70]

Cucumbers. Reefcleaners normally has them as well as conchs.

[Palting]

Most of the CUC "packages" are overstocked, IMO. Younger tanks don't have as much food for the CUC as fully stocked tanks, so the CUC starve and die off.

I suggest starting slow with a few hermits, a few snails, a pair of shrimp. The add as needed as you add more fish to the tank.

Substrate is best kept clean by stirring the substrate to get the detritus out to be processed by the biofilters, or vacuuming it, depending on which philosophy you believe in.

If you are worried about algae, IMO and IME, the answer to algae is NOT a clean up crew. CUC help consume detritus, but algae control is about nitrate and phosphate control. In my heavily stocked 150 gallon (see sig below), I only have maybe 4 hermits, 4 basic snails, 1 skunk shrimp, and 2 long spine urchins. Lots of brittle stars, worms and other critters reside in the substrate and in the rocks, but those grew out over time from live rock. Phosphate and nitrate is controlled by water changes and a large remote refugium with macro algae. Despite the relatively large fish population and heavy coral feeding, nitrate and phosphate are undetectable with the basic test kits, and there are no algae issues.