Cleanup Crew - What, How many?

[Greg129]

I'm planning on buying a cleanup crew this weekend for my 65 gallon. It's going to be tank with soft corals. Any ideas on what I should buy to keep the tank nice and clean? I know I want some hermits and snails and maybe cleaner shrimp? Any reccommendations on what I should get and how many?

[Nanook]

Hermits, while interesting, can eat most of the sandbed fauna. That said, I would avoid them and get other stuff like:

Bristle worms, spaghetti worms, fighting conch, nassarius snails, cerith snails, copepods, mysis shrimp, cucumbers, etc.

dave

[starmanres]

2 Cleaner Shrimp and at least 1 snail per gallon. Hermit crabs would be in the 15-20 range. personally, I like scarlet hermits because they rarely fight and work like crazy.

My rule is that if you can count your clean up crew, you don't have enough.

Just my .02

Robert

[puffer21]

you could look at TBS

[amazingbobby]

I only have a 29gal, but wouold like to input that I have what would be considered a small amount of janitors. 6 astraea, 1 trochus, 2 turban, 6 blue legged hermits. After the initial algae bloom, they have kept the tank picked clean. The only area that could be improved is sand bed scavenging. If fact, I worry that they may starve without feeding in the future.
Just something to consider, and know that my aquarium is still rather young.

[mr pink floyd]

in my 29, i have 10 turbos, 12 cerinth, 12 nassarious, 5 hermits, putting them in sump or overflow or suttin

[Sk8r]

margaritas are great glass-cleaners. Strombus grazers get into tight places. Ceriths seem to do glass and sand. Fighting conchs are sand cleaners. Hermits eat anything: I have a near dozen in my 52 and have never had any bad behavior out of them: they're the scarlets and tiny bluelegs. They have to be provided spare shells a size larger than their current ones or they will harass snails in desperation, but they're funny and they're hard workers.

[TropTrea]

My aproach on cleaner crews is this.
Don't add anything untill you see an initial need on a new tank. When you see your first bloom of algea then add hermit crab. Usually one per gallon. Remember to also get at least twice the number of extra shells as you get hermits so they have shells to chang into. Then about a month later I start adding the snails. General aim again is at least one per gallon. However I divide them up between nassarius, certs, and astrea. If in time the hermit population dies off I do not replace them.

Dennis


Dennis

[Greg129]

Thanks for all of the input. Here's what I'm going to start out with:

4 x Dwarf Zebra Hermit Crab
2 x Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab
2 x Dwarf Blue Leg Hermit Crab
3 x Astraea Conehead Snail
2 x Margarita Snail
2 x Cerith Snail
1 x Turbo Snail
2 x Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

How does this sound as a start?

[starmanres]

I like it.

I would suggest trying to keep your water temp at 77...

The snails will live longer that way. They do like it cool.

HTH

Robert

[Greg129]

Thanks for the tip. My tank is at 80 now. I'll lower it for them.

[paulallen]

Hermits will kill eachother, I am pretty sure different species are more likely to kill eachother. Might want to go with all one type.

[TropTrea]

Tes definatly stay with one species of hermits. Which species is best is probably debatable. Howeever keeping a good assortment of extra shells for them seems to definatly reduce on there agressive behavior not only tword each other but also to the snails. It is not uncommon for a hermit crab to kill snails trying to get a new home.

Dennis


<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7065761#post7065761 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by paulallen
Hermits will kill eachother, I am pretty sure different species are more likely to kill eachother. Might want to go with all one type.

[reefer_for_life]

not trying to hijack your thread, but thought my question could be useful to you as well. where do you get extra shells from? ive never seen them for sale at my LFS or online. links would be great. thanks.

[iaJim]

I've read here that craft stores like Michaels sell the shells. Make sure they aren't painted. Probably need to be boiled to be really safe.

[Greg129]

Okay. So one species only. I'll go with the Zebra Hermits. I plan on putting them in a 10 gallon QT for 3 weeks. Would that be alright since they are aggressive to each other and are in a small space?