Diatom bloom, clean up crew suggestion?

[zsteph]

Looks like my tank has started a diatom bloom as part of the seasoning. It's not terribly bad but there is a bit of green on the glass and oxygen bubbles from the top of the live rock.

I'm wanting to add a few clean up crew but I'm wondering which may be best for hardiness and efficiency.

Would this work for my 28 gal JBJ nano?

1 tiger sand conch
1 Mexican turbo snail
2 reef safe hermits?

I figure those are not as destructive and as I am not really looking to ever get sand sifting fish, the conch would be free to dig as much as it wants.

I don't want to overload with too many inverts so I just want a few good janitors to keep the diatoms in check while I finish the cycling.

So far my levels are all looking good and the GFO seems to be helping keep phosphates in check.

 

[Rendos]

What are your water parameters? Adding any clean up crew when the tank is cycling may very well end up with dead snails, etc. If you have any presence of ammonia or nitrite, I would wait until those are zero before adding inverts.

 

[zsteph]

What are your water parameters? Adding any clean up crew when the tank is cycling may very well end up with dead snails, etc. If you have any presence of ammonia or nitrite, I would wait until those are zero before adding inverts.

All zero on the nitrogen cycle. My ammonia will occasionally hit barely above 0 but drops after a day or two.

PH is normal and SG is 1.025-1.026 (working on getting it more to 1.025) My temps are 77 at night and 78-78.5 during the day.

My refugium is really helping to cut down on nitrates so I am ready for a small crew to pick over the LR.

I'm hesitant to use hermits as I really don't want to worry about soft corals and snails later on. If anyone has some insight on like electric blue or other Calcinus genus, I would appreciate it.

 

[mr.badams]

I used turbo snails and blue/red leg hermits... Cleaned
up the diatoms well

 

[Nanodoc]

I like astrea snails better. The Mexican turbos are like bulldozers, knocking off corals and pushing my frags on the bottom too close to each other.
I also like the blue legs, looks like they are working all the time, compared to the red legs.
Just an opinion

 

[zsteph]

Thanks everyone. I think we'll go with Astraea, nerite, a conch, and a couple electric blue hermits.

 

[techdiver]

My favorite snails are banded trochus snails, ceriths, and nassarius. The scarlets are less aggressive toward snails, but the blue hermits are always busy like nano said.

 

[Raquel12771]

Thanks for the info, we'll gladly use it!

 

[Cruezn]

Emerald crabs will help with your algae too. I love those guys

 

[Raquel12771]

Picked up a few cleaning crew members yesterday. I got 2 red hermit crabs, 2 Astrea snails, and a tiger conch. It is amazing how much they cleaned over night! The hermit crabs are going to town on the live rock!