reef team

[andyrew]

Ive had my tank for... 4 years now I think???? and every year or year and a half I notice that I ahve far fewer hermits and snails and that algea is beginning to accumulate on the rocks. Is this normal? Does a "reef team" need to be replaced that often? Hair algea is what I am battling with right now, would a sea urchin or starfish help with this?

thanks for your help

andrew

 

[sir_dudeguy]

Well for starters, they're probably disappearing because you've got hermits. Hermits will not only kill other hermits, but they WILL kill over snails for their shells. No way around it, they're gonna do it. So that probably isnt helping your situation. I'd get rid of all hermits and just go with snails only for your main algae eaters. Get a good variety of snails, not just one.

Then i'd get something like a small emerald crab to help w/the hair alga, or something else that eats HA. What all do you have now as far as snails and any other cleanup animals?

 

[andyrew]

I had a white sand star some fish and some low maintainance corals but I was away at university this year so I pretty much took everything back to the store. Originally the cleanup crew was:

30 - Blue Legged Hermits
5 - Red Scarlet Hermit
10 - Astrea Snails
10 - Margarita Snails
10 - Cerith Snails

I was going to just rebuy this "package". right now there cant be more than 5 snails and 10 hermits. Should I instead just buy some snails and starfish or sea urchin?

 

[sir_dudeguy]

I'm guessing the star you had was a sand sifting star...which you DONT want. It would eat everything in your sand and then die. They require tons of open sand...something a 54 doesnt have.

I wouldnt buy one of those packages either. They just give you stuff you dont need so they can run up the cost. Go to reeftopia.com, try to find a couple other people to get in on a group order, and if you get an order over 120 you get free shipping. I'd order like 10 astreas, 10 ceriths, 10 nassarius, and maybe some other inverts like an emerald crab and maybe a couple turbo snails.

While the margaritas are pretty good cleaners, they're a cooler water snail, meaning they wont live long in a reef tank. I've read that they're in warmer water for about 3 months of the year, so that would probably explain why mine lasted about 2-4 months.

And last, i wouldnt get the hermits...get more snails instead...so maybe replace all the hermits w/astreas and ceriths (i like the ceriths the best). The hermits will just fight themselves and other snails for their shells and you'll end up having a lot lower number than you start with. Whats more...snails are better cleaners anyways. Hermits just scavenge for stuff...if you want something like that, just get a cleaner shrimp cuz they're good at finding loose food.

 

[kevin2000]

Replenishing clean up crews every yr is pretty std .. no big deal.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

really? weird, i've had only like 5 snails die in about a year lol.

 

[kevin2000]

I did not mean to imply that all your clean up crew dies annually ... just that every yr your going to have to do some replacement .. some yrs more some yrs less.

 

[andyrew]

thanks sirdude, you're posts make a lot sense. I'll probably go to my lfs ("local" in a relative sense), jlaquatics, they've got good price and have helped me out in the past.

I was also thinking about an ababone, especially now since I see the starfish idea was a bad one. I foolishly got one a couple years ago and only had it a couple months before it ran into my anemone (which is at jlaquatics now).

 

[sir_dudeguy]

Did you mean abalone? I'm thinkin you just made a typo. I personally know nothing about those, but i'm thinkin i read they're difficult to keep somwhere. Be sure to read up on them...

 

[andyrew]

a-b-a-l-o-n-e, that's what I meant.....

I'll definitely do my reading

 

[sir_dudeguy]

lol ya figured

here's just a quick facts sheet to them though. Looks like you need to keep up on your calcium levels if you get one

http://liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=561&N=0

 

[Wett Hands]

How about a sea hare?

Seems like everyone here raves about them and I was thinking about one for my 75 gal. Any good sites out there to research them?

 

[sir_dudeguy]

ya those are good for HA from what i hear...never had one, but i've been tempted a few times. But then again, i dont really have any hair alga

 

[Reefmack]

My sea hare is eating all of my algae, sections of matted, rock hugging stuff, a few little spots of hair algae that I had, and even a couple small areas of what I think was a brownish black cyano. He's on my glass, on my rock, and on the sand. I'm not sure if they all do that kind of job, but I'm really impressed on what my rock looks like after putting him in a week ago. My lawnmower blenny concentrates on the "easy" algae on the glass and rock, but the hare has gone after everything. Right now I'm concerned about the blenny and the hare running out of algae to eat & I'm putting algae sheet in hoping the blenny will take it.

 

[andyrew]

maybe I got this wrong (I'll do a little research), but I thought that a sea hare would run out of food and die pretty quickly in a 50g? (50g tank+4g sump)

 

[sir_dudeguy]

I dont think they will...but i could be wrong. I think they take other stuff as well besides algae...

 

[Reefmack]

Correct on the sea hare in that they can starve if they run out of algae. When that times comes (looks like soon), and if he won't eat algae on a clip, I'll post in my local reef club & see if anyone needs one. I've heard they get passed around a lot between peoples' tanks that have algae problems. I'd hate to give him up as he's really a unique critter, but I don't want to lose him to starvation. He's the 'gentle giant' in my tank! As ugly as he is my wife likes him and calls him "The Blob"!