Clean Up Crews

[Romulox234]

I need some advice on your clean up crews for your non-photosynthetic tanks. I need really good bottom scavengers i have 2 sun corals with maybe 75 combined heads and food occasionaly falls to the sand and i need a really good clean up crew to eat all of it, I have a couple of nassarius snails and ill definitly get some more and my brittle star doesnt really work it just sits under his rock, does anybody have any suggestions for what would work the best?

 

[uhuru]

I feed my tank like crazy and rely solely on nassarius snails to clean the bottom. I also have a chalk bass that picks food from the bottom (and steals it from the corals mouths), as well as some gobies that pick food from the substrate. I bet some shrimp would really help but they would probably steal a lot of food from the corals as well.

 

[stunreefer]

I also solely use Nassarius snails - they're very efficient and cause no harm to anything else. For the most part though, I directly spot feed everything and count on them eating it and not having much, if any excess food hit the substrate. The little bit that is swept away by the current is food for my Sunburst anthias.

I would not recommend shrimp as they will try to steal food from the corals - I've had cleaner shrimp literally rip open coral flesh/tissue to eat the food, causing major damage to the coral. He quickly became food

 

[uhuru]

You mean you turned him into a fresh meal for your Rhizos? LOL

BTW I have the fragged rhizo from cherry now. Just started opening when I fed the tank. Looked beautiful for the brief moment it was open.

 

[Romulox234]

So how many would you recomend i keep i was thinking somewhere between 10-15 plus the 3 i already have

 

[stunreefer]

It really depends on how much excess food you have hitting the substrate (try to avoid that as much as possible), but I would think 15 Nassiarius vibex should suffice in a 60 gal.