clean up crew for sps

seamas

New member
Any rec's in regards to what snails are best and what to avoid such as hermits in SPS tank? Also , where is the best place to get the clean up crew. TIA
 
hi,

I agree with SeanT's advice

Through my personal observations, I use 1 Astrea per 2 gallons of water. Everyone's system is different though.
I have a 180 gallon tank and have about 100 Astrea's in there (200 Cerith's), and my rocks are clean.


-Astreas are great at harvesting algae.
-Ceriths are great at harvesting other algae - and - astrea poop.
-Ceriths will make the astrea poop easier for you to harvest with a skimmer.

I like these guys
http://rockyshores.saltyzoo.com/price/

and http://reeftopia.com/

note: Ceriths from rockyshores are small and reeftopia are the bigger size ones

sam
 
I love ceriths, and I can see why you dont want hermits in your tank. I have found scarlet reef hermits to be model citizens in my tanks and help with the algea.
 
I have scarlets, blue legs, every snail commonly in aquaria, and peppermint shrimp, with no detriment to candy cane, frogspawn, pocillaria, acropora, etc. A scarlet just traipsed over the base of a bali green slimer a moment ago, and provoked nothing from the coral but indifference. Those little feet are light and accurate.
 
I myself and others believe hermits are just for show, doing little to clean your tank. Snails do the cleaning.
A test: Start two 55g tanks with 100 lbs live rock, each with 2 250 watt MH lights, filtered similarly. Fill one with 50 hermits and one with 50 snails. See which tank stays cleaner.
++++As for where to get livestock you put in your tank++++
The cleanest, best run local fish store that has happy fish and good customer relations with repete customers are the best place. You buy what you see.... healthy feeding motile livestock.
HTH
TimO
 
Ceriths and astreas. Turbos get larger and can dislodge things. I believe in leaving reef tanks, crab free. Just my opinion. They dont do anything that special anyways that the snails dont do. I have used scarletts, but they dont seem to really work like the snails, so why risk it, but if i did have to put a crap the scarletts.
 
One word: Astreas!.. I have like 300 of them in my tank...Now, if only they could flip themselves over..Id have like 10,000..LOL :D
 
I've got a 58, with about 10-15 astreas. If I put the 29 in there that hes reccomending, they'd starve to death. I have no algae.


I think hermits do more work on the hair/macro type algaes than snails do.
 
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