Quick crew (75g)

[Victorg1001]

Starting my research on CUC. My cycle is almost complete.

I checked out cleaner packages at reefcleaners.org but the package for my tank size seems huge

74 dwarf cerith
25 Nassarius
27 Florida cerith
25 Nerites

Can't imagine there's enough food to feed 100+ living animals in my new relatively clean tank. I was thinking maybe one fifth of what is "recommended".

What do ya'll think?

 

[Dave & Monica]

I found this helpful summary on clean up crew. For me personally, I'd half that order.

http://joejaworski.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/whats-the-best-snail-for-a-reef-tank/

 

[shermanator]

I got their recommended size for my 55 gal and it is a LOT of snails, indeed. If I did it over, I'd get many fewer ceriths and nerites. You are probably fine with 1/4 for each of those.

Overall, I find the dwarf ceriths the most annoying. They are all over the glass hanging there, but don't really do an effective job of cleaning (compared to the nerites, at least).

I love nassarius snails and I'd get 25 of them just because they are so awesome. But they don't eat algae (or diatoms) and really shouldn't be added until you are regularly feeding the tank.

 

[Kyle918]

I was also undecided with reefcleaners.org with such a young tank. I ended up waiting until I added my two fish and for my diatom outbreak to get to its worst then added 5 Nassarius, 2 Trochus and 2 hermits that I bought from a LFS.

They cleaned the tank completely in about a week or so. It's been over a month now and they are keeping things in check so far.

I would start small and add as you feed more or the algae continues to progress despite adding a CUC. I'll get a big CUC from reef cleaners once I have the demand and can be home on the weekday to unpack the delivery.

 

[Victorg1001]

I found this helpful summary on clean up crew. For me personally, I'd half that order.

http://joejaworski.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/whats-the-best-snail-for-a-reef-tank/

Great article. I'll start off small and reevaluate monthly. Thanks all!

 

[cloak]

Starting my research on CUC. My cycle is almost complete.

I checked out cleaner packages at reefcleaners.org but the package for my tank size seems huge

74 dwarf cerith
25 Nassarius
27 Florida cerith
25 Nerites

Can't imagine there's enough food to feed 100+ living animals in my new relatively clean tank. I was thinking maybe one fifth of what is "recommended".

What do ya'll think?

That's way too many snails IMO. I think you would be better off just adding 7 to 10 turbo/trochus snails, and maybe a couple scarlet hermit crabs. See how these do for awhile and then adjust the population accordingly. (hopefully you won't have to add anything else) Don't forget, you can keep the glass clean all by your self. (Mag-Float) You can also keep the sand bed clean by stirring it up on occasion and siphoning out the detritus. (no need for nassarius snails) You might get some algae growth on the rocks or the powerheads, but if everything goes right this will most likely be replaced by coralline algae over time.
A little elbow grease can go a long ways sometimes. Being able to get by with the LEAST amount of janitors in a tank is really what you want. GL.

 

[Clmarti78]

Old thread but wanted to post on this cleaning crew. I got the 30 breeding crew from them and out of about 80 snails 30- 40 of them didn't make it. So I emailed the company and they said send a picture and they would send me a refund. So later that night I started to pick snails out of the tank one by one checking them to see if there was anything still living in them or if they had died or just empty. About an hour later I have a container with about 30 snails and I went ahead and took a picture and sent it in and let them know there are more but this is what I could get out for now. So the next morning I get a notification that a partial refund had been posted to my account of $3.00. So I loose half the snail that was about $35 total and they refund $3? I had heard the customer service was awesome with these guys and that's why I decided to order from them. Another thing is the way they were shipped. 3 of the Mage 2 with snails and one with micro algae had water and air in them the other 3 had fee small amount of water enough to keep the paper towel wet but th bags had no air at all not sure if that would matter with snails but I would assume it would. Any ways a lot of people have had great luck with these guys and this is just my .02 cents... Good luck on finding a cleaner crew me I'm off to the local reef shop for mine this morning.