what should my first members of the clean up crew be, from an lfs?

[nemo g]

im thinking of picking up some snails this weekend, and was wondering if any southern(fairfield cty) lfs had any decent crew members (ie snails hermits) at decent prices?

at the moment its a cycled 29g temp tank (till i settle on a big tank), with just a few pounds of live rock, but plenty of flow and filtration if needed.

only fauna in the tank are a 2mm snails (moslty come out with lights off), maybe a tubeworm on the rock, and some type of pod (good i hope) i saw running around the rock (havent seen it in a week though).

gf is feening to save a fish, ive held off for 2 weeks to make sure the tank was good to go. so i guess itll have a " rescue" this weekend also.

[BlackOnyx]

my hermits only seem to get bigger as my snail population gets smaller. I'd stay away from hermits

[nemo g]

arent the red legs safer than the blues?

at the moment i have very little algea in the tank, just s light hazing on the glass that i left for the tiny rock hitchiker snails.

in fact, the small areas of the live rock that had a light haze to it is already being covered with coraline. im not sure if the haze was die off, it was already cured and only out of the water for a few hours.

so id like to get something to eat left over food, only one or two, of the right type. and ill see how it goes.

[drewdegenhardt]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6869705#post6869705 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BlackOnyx
my hermits only seem to get bigger as my snail population gets smaller. I'd stay away from hermits

I 2nd this. I really regretted having hermits after awhile.

[Rockym]

As my hermits die they are not replaced. I would go with a variety of snails.

[NoSchwag]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6869680#post6869680 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nemo g
im thinking of picking up some snails this weekend, and was wondering if any southern(fairfield cty) lfs had any decent crew members (ie snails hermits) at decent prices?


No, not around Fairfield.

It might be way cheaper to contact justphish.com and get them from him.

[Star Fish Jones]

I'm in the market for some snails in lower Fairfield and have not found any good place either. I'm keeping my eye out though.

[hans1976]

Bob's Exotic Fish and Corals in Milford is having his Grand opening on Sunday 3/12. I am sure he will have some good deals.

[km133688]

Staying away from the "this is good, this is bad", my experience has been that you should treat your cleanup crew like the "investement experts" say to treat your stocks, DIVERSIFY.

I think this is a crappy rule for investing but then what do I know, you got to have money before you have to worry about investing, and I am a reef keeper so I ain't got no money. But for cleanup crews this works pretty good for me.

One key I think is that even though every member of the cleanup crew will eat lots of things, each seems to have a different most preferred food item. Because of this, I think a variety helps keep problem algeas and mixed detritus to a minimum. Thus I have always had best luck when keeping a variety of crabs, variety of snails, and othe rinverts. So if you can afford it, or can make it happen at low cost somehow, don't just settle for one kind of snail or one kind of crab.

Common cleaners seems to be, hermints (blue leg, red leg, zebra, ...), shrimps, emerald crabs, sally lightfoot crabs, and serpent stars (watch out here, as only some stars are reef safe, most are not).

I never regretted having hermits, I liked the variety, and they spawn for me which is cool. Every cleaner will have someone who likes them and someone who had problems with them so the best you can do is look for well founded trends.

Good luck, Kevin

[mr pink floyd]

iave had hermits and snails, only once did a shermit go after a snail, but it didnt succeed, tomorrow im gettin 24 snails from just phish, ty him hes got good prices his aim is just phish911