Clean up crew question

[ctniners]

Hi guys,

I don’t know if this is really a debate in the hobby, but I have a simple question…..the trend or advice that all new people in the hobby get is to have a clean up crew that includes snails and crabs….my issue is this, crabs are very opportunistic feeders, will not kill snails only for the shells, my Mexican Turbo flipped between 2 rocks and within minutes before the snail (big and slow) could turn back up, 2 crabs started picking at it and it was too late by the time I got there..I say minutes because I was feeding the fish minutes before and both of my turbos were doing fine.

So enough of the rambling, my question is, what do the crabs do that cerith snails, Turbo snails, sand sifting snails, etc cannot do?....are they really necessary?.......I don’t have a clam yet but don’t they irritate clams too?....Just wondering if I should take all my crabs to LFS

Thanks for all your inputs!

 

[Dave Harms]

I've only had hermits that were starving eat snails.

By starving I mean you have too many hermits for the algae growth in your tank so they don't get enough to eat. If you feed pellets to your fish and the crabs get some then they tend to not starve also.

Now, do crabs do anything that snails can't? I've noticed that mine eat certain types of algae that my snails don't fool with.

My biggest reason for using hermits is: I like the way they look and act!

Hermit 101

 

[ctenophors rule]

hermits will often kill the snails for their shells not because its fun, but because they dont have enough shells to chose from.

now are we talking about all crabs, or just some?(hermits?)

because the emerald crab (while it may or may not become predatory in ater years) will eat bubble algae.

the porcelain crabs wont hurt a fly.


btw, imo hermits dont belong on a reef tank anyway, because hey will eat fresh new corraline algae)

and turbo snails (the astrea variety) are some of the worst snail to have, and almost always end up dieing prematurely.

 

[ctniners]

Ok, thanks for the inputs so far....

I was taking about hermits, I have blue leg and red scarlets, it is interesting that you say that hermits do not belong in the reef because they eat coralline algae....I have never heard of that, maybe thats why my coralline is not growing as fast as it should...

Now, about my mexican turbo snails, they are crazy eaters and I can confirm that will plow through red hair algae and other algae, the only problem is that are huge, especially for my size of tank, but I cant complain, they are also able to flip right up.

Dave brought up a good point, maybe they are so hungry they went after my snail when it was upside down.......so then my question is more relevant, if they are starving why arent they eating my cerith snails?......I bought a bounch of all size empty shells and those are the ones they are moving in to.

So, what kind of algae will hermits eat that snails wont?