Buying clean up crew question...

[tmerf11]

So I'm just about ready to add a clean up crew to my tank and was wondering what people in southern Mass and RI have done for their cuc. I've seen plenty of online suppliers, but with the weather being so unpredictable and not being home all day I'd like to avoid livestock thru the mail until the summer. Are there any local places you've had luck with? I'm just looking to add a few snails and hermits. I don't have a ton of algea going thankfully. I cycled with some raw shrimp so I'm sure there are chunks of that in the tank and some stuff to eat off the live rock.

And would anyone have suggestions on #'s? My tank is 120 and I've seen huge #'s suggested on some of the vendor websites, and with my tank as it is right now I just don't see how there would be enough for 100 snails / hermits to eat... I've got about 20 lbs of good live rock and 70/80 ish dry Marco.

 

[Phinfan]

Sea creature in North prov.

 

[aries426]

I would start off the a small crew see how it goes and then you can add from there.

Narrasius and Turbo are good snails to get. Some Emerald Crabs are great for hair algae and anything laying around. Various hermits are great scavengers and Peppermint Shrimp are good at keep Aiptasia away. Cleaner shrimp are good to have when you have fish.

Number wise, it's really up to you. In my 29g I have about a dozen snails are around 6 hermit crabs, 2 emerald crabs and a few peppermint shrimp.

Like I had mentioned, start off small and you can add, there is no need to go and get 50 snails at once lol. Everyone has their own opinions.

Good luck

Thanks Chad

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

 

[onefish]

ya just missed the invert buy.

i personally dont like any crabs in my tank, maybe besides the refugium. this def. goes for hermits too as they seem to love ripping snails from their shells only to decide they dont want that shell.

i suggest a mixture of snails. a dozen or so to start and more can always be added easier then taken away. i would maybe add a few dozen now and when it warms up place an online order to save a few bucks.

 

[Owen386]

I would not worry about getting CUC in the mail right now. CUC travels quite well. Maybe I would be worried if I was getting More sensitive shrimp or something But snails and crabs..... I did a build your on CUC with free shipping from Liveaquaria a little away ago I was satisfied

-Owen

 

[tmerf11]

Cool... Thanks for all the replies. I kind of had my heart set on some hermits, so maybe I'll just go with 1 or two, that way if they're murderers I'll be able to get them out fairly easy.

 

[SteveDola]

Id start out with a mixture of

turbos (pacific and mexican)
nerite
trochus
nassarius (not a lot with new sandbed)
cerith (eats detrius)

scarlett hermits (eat the bad stuff)

peppermint shrimp
cleaner shrimp
---------------------
once more the tank is more established maybe add a conch.

Dont go overboard all at once and not have a food source for the inverts but a good mix is key for keeping the rock and sandbed clean.

 

[SteveDola]

snails are going to die regardless of hermits. If a few snails fall victim to a couple of hermits then so be it because hermits will pick off the aglea, eat waste food, and good a great job of keeping the tank clean. I wouldnt go crazy but 10-15 to start would work well.

ALso, I wouldnt buy astrea snails (not the same as turbos). The astrea snails(cone shaped and white) do eat but they are a consistant pain to flip over when they fall. If they dont get flipped...they die. Margarite snails are a waste too, they are from cold waters and dont live long in our tempered tanks.

120g is a nice size. I lived in WW for most of my life so from a former WW reefer- Good luck with the tank

 

[onefish]

i would add a sandshifting cucumber once the tank is more established too.

 

[tmerf11]

Thanks again for all the input... There really isn't too much visible algea yet, and the sand is brand new, so I'll probably start off with a handful of a couple different types of snails a few hermits and maybe a shrimp and let them go at it for a while. There's some raw shrimp chunks in there that I'm sure should hold them over for a while. I'd almost feel better if there were some algae for them to be getting to work on, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of that down the road and will wish I didn't have it.

 

[SteveDola]

was it dead LR? has the tank cycle?

definitely go slow...if you dont have alot of rock then there wouldnt be much to munch on anyways.

 

[tmerf11]

I started with about 70/80 lbs of dry marco and then I bought about 20 lbs of live from coral reef in seekonk. It was nice and purple and I probably had it out of the water for maybe 30 minutes ish (with wet paper towels all over) and it went right in the tank. I threw in a couple raw shrimp to cycle and I never saw any ammonia, but my nitrates have started to rise, so I'm assuming whatever was on the live rock was enough to handle the shrimp and the bacteria should be populating the rest of the rock. I was freaked out that I didn't see any ammonia, but once I saw the nitrates start to rise, I figured I was good to go. And I'm certainly in no hurry. I figured I'd have the cuc in there for a couple of weeks at least before I added the first fish. Then it'll be one at a time and i've got a 29g that I'm going to use for qt.

 

[SteveDola]

when did you start it? even with live rock you should get an ammonia spike from some of the dieoff on the rock. It will be hard but Id wait 3-4 weeks before adding anything maybe just a few snails. let the tank level out and bacteria start populating before you strain the system with livestock.

Its been a while since I set up a tank but slow and steady wins the race.

 

[tmerf11]

I'm in no way in a hurry... It's been 3 weeks and I've been testing every couple of days and have just started seeing my nitrates go up. Some other people I talked to said with good live rock I might not see a nh3 spike. Either way... Not planning on adding anything this week, so I'll keep testing and even when i do add something alive, it wont be more than a few snails and crabs.