markandkristen
Active member
wac curious how many i would need for a 150 and are they the best for hair algae
snails mexican turbo how many for a 150
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papagimp
COMAS Rocks!
IMO, none. I hate those things. but they are decent for a snail, I just hate picking up all my frags after they've been knocked over.
For hair algae, your best bet is going to be a vairety of algae eating critters instead of alot of a single type. Best hair algae eater I've ever owned was a baby queen conch, but he ate HA in my tank, but not in somebody elses.
You can go to sites such as liveaquaria.com and similar to see what kind of numbers they utilize in their clean up packages, to give you a rough estimate.
I honestly wouldn't stick more than 5 of the turbo's in my tank. I'd use up a bunch of ceriths, nerites, maybe fighting conch, astrea's, and nassarius. Some of these won't touch the HA, but algae is only one reason to have a cleaning crew.
For hair algae, your best bet is going to be a vairety of algae eating critters instead of alot of a single type. Best hair algae eater I've ever owned was a baby queen conch, but he ate HA in my tank, but not in somebody elses.
You can go to sites such as liveaquaria.com and similar to see what kind of numbers they utilize in their clean up packages, to give you a rough estimate.
I honestly wouldn't stick more than 5 of the turbo's in my tank. I'd use up a bunch of ceriths, nerites, maybe fighting conch, astrea's, and nassarius. Some of these won't touch the HA, but algae is only one reason to have a cleaning crew.
markandkristen
Active member
i had hermits before ... a few.
im running B.B. so i was curious on what would be the best clean up crew.
im running B.B. so i was curious on what would be the best clean up crew.
DSMpunk
Active member
I would go with 5 or 6 turbo snails and mix them up with an urchin or two and a bunch of astrea and cerith snails. The turbos and urchins are bulldozers for sure, but if you secure your frags well enough its not really an issue.
I had a queen conch in my BB tank for about a year until it died. it was about the size of my fist! I'm guessing it starved to death after I converted to BB, so I wouldn't recommend them for your tank.
I had a queen conch in my BB tank for about a year until it died. it was about the size of my fist! I'm guessing it starved to death after I converted to BB, so I wouldn't recommend them for your tank.
papagimp
COMAS Rocks!
DSMpunk, probably did starve to death with no sandbed, but you can supplement their feeding to keep em alive. Without any sandbed though, this would have to be done alot. Queens can get upwards of 16+" most smaller, but that's alot of food needed. Sorry to hear of the loss, I recently also lost a queen I loaned to a friend for HA removal. He was only a baby 
As for the "best" algae crew, it's all going to depend on your system really. Differnt systems have different problem algae showing up, a nice mix added over time will allow you to see where you need to concentrate more, either on the glass, sandbed, rockwork, ect. certain snails will attack certain areas better. Cerith are great at the sandbed, stirring it as well as eating stuff from it, and occasionally crawl around the glass and rockwork. Astrea's tend to stick more to the glass and rockwork, nerites mostly glass and rockwork. nassarius almsot all sandbed, some glass and rockwork. Take caution when choosing urchins though, some can be disastrous while others may be harmless, they can wreck havoc on the aquascaping. I have a large diadema setsum that is surprsingly very harmless and as gentle as I've ever seen an urchin. Has NEVER knocked anything over...even with a 12" spine-span. But he does rasp the color clean off the rockwork quickly. And I did witness him eat a sabea in under an hour, but I believe the sabea was on it's way to anemone heaven to begin with (his one little mess up in the tank)
As for the "best" algae crew, it's all going to depend on your system really. Differnt systems have different problem algae showing up, a nice mix added over time will allow you to see where you need to concentrate more, either on the glass, sandbed, rockwork, ect. certain snails will attack certain areas better. Cerith are great at the sandbed, stirring it as well as eating stuff from it, and occasionally crawl around the glass and rockwork. Astrea's tend to stick more to the glass and rockwork, nerites mostly glass and rockwork. nassarius almsot all sandbed, some glass and rockwork. Take caution when choosing urchins though, some can be disastrous while others may be harmless, they can wreck havoc on the aquascaping. I have a large diadema setsum that is surprsingly very harmless and as gentle as I've ever seen an urchin. Has NEVER knocked anything over...even with a 12" spine-span. But he does rasp the color clean off the rockwork quickly. And I did witness him eat a sabea in under an hour, but I believe the sabea was on it's way to anemone heaven to begin with (his one little mess up in the tank)
markandkristen
Active member
so are hermits pretty much out as far as bare bottom
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