clean up crew?

[jimpierce]

I just read an article about clean up crews and it recommends one snail per gallon of water and one hermit crab per 2 gallons of water. That sounds like a lot. 40 snails and 20 crabs?

Conch snails. Are they good to have or special for any thing? I have one in my sump and he sure is cool to watch.

[TowBoater]

I would get Narssisus snails if I wanted something cool to watch. Astrea, Margarita, Narssisus, and several other variety's of snails all so the same thing.

[Halelorf]

Yea I load up on snails for my clean up crew. I haven't had much luck with hermit crabs. I have loads of extra shells in the tank but they always seem to want each others one so they kill and eat some poor one to take his shell. Then switch back to the old one in minutes. My 15 gallon tank has 1 emerald mythrax crab, 2 turbo snails, 15ish nassarius snails, 15ish cerith snails, 3 astrea snails, 3ish scarley hermit crabs, and a stomatella.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

Careful of the Conchs. There are some that are reef safe and others that are not. The most popular is the Tongan Fighting conch, they are great sand stirrers and quite reef safe. IIRC, the Queen Conch is the one you want to avoid. Personally though I'd go with the Nassarius snails for the sand and the Asteras for the glass.

[TowBoater]

Careful of the Conchs. There are some that are reef safe and others that are not. The most popular is the Tongan Fighting conch, they are great sand stirrers and quite reef safe. IIRC, the Queen Conch is the one you want to avoid. Personally though I'd go with the Nassarius snails for the sand and the Asteras for the glass.

Ditto to that and I would go like one hermit for every 4 gallons and maybe put like 4 Mithrix rather it be emerald or red, they do the same thing.

[jimpierce]

the Conch is a sump snail. lol This morning I find him and one of the othher snails in the sump have almost completely wiped out my batch of Cyano. I do need to get more snails then for sure. Its time to do a new head count on my hermies. I had 5. Some seem to stay hidden pretty good.

[spudbuds]

I agree with most of what everyone said. However, Nassarius do not do the same thing as astreas and margaritas. Nassarius are carnivores that eat left over food and help keep the sand bed stirred as they bury themselves (which is really cool to watch). If there isn't enough left over food for them, they will starve. Astreas and margaritas are herbivores that will help keep your algae under control.

Also, I would caution against loading up all at once with a set number per gallon. I prefer to add a few at a time and let the clean up crew grow as the tank needs them. If you load up all at once and there isn't enough to eat, they will starve and you'll end up polluting a tank with things that were meant to help keep it clean.

- Bill

[jimpierce]

that makes sense Bill.

[NickFish]

If you load up all at once and there isn't enough to eat, they will starve and you'll end up polluting a tank with things that were meant to help keep it clean.

- Bill

A very good point.

I have a ton of different snails in my tank.

The nassarius are my favourite just because of they way they burrow and then appear out of no where. But my astrea probably do the best clean up job.

I like trochus snails too, which haven't been mentioned yet. Sometimes they are harder to find, but they do just as good a job as my astrea and they can right themselves when flipped.