too much CuC?

[schoch79]

Are there any down sides to buying too much of a clean up crew? Short of the extra money spent? I mean hypothetically if I were to buy say 50 hermits and 50 each nassarius and turbo snails for a 25 gallon tank once they would obviously run out of food and some would die off from starvation....would the die off end up polluting the tank or would all the hermits just eat all the flesh and we could call it a day? I mean essentially all the dead flesh would just be "fish food" by that point and once eaten you would get your typical waste by-products but that would be it right? This way your tank would balance its own needs for a cuc? I know the numbers I posted are extreme but while I was surfing the net I thought of this and was just curious. Don't plan to actually do this lol.

 

[travis32]

Good that you don't plan to do this. Yes, Snail, hermit, and other invert deaths can lead to a crash. Think about it. Say 10 snails or hermits die of starvation at once. Their corpses let's say trigger a slight .25 ammonia spike. Let's say now 5 or 10 more are dieing of starvation and die because of the ammonia spike and stress. Let's say ammonia rises to .30 before it is fully process. Then, another 10 die because they are sensitive to ammonia. (poison to inverts) Their deaths trigger a rise in ammonia to say .40. Then, that triggers 30 more snail / crab deaths, which then jumps it over the .5 mark. At this time, You have die off of other inverts in your rocks (if not sooner) copepods dieing, amphipods, any asterina starfish, corals, Fish are stressed. As more and more stuff starts dieing, ammonia rises over 1.0ppm. And Now you've got dead fish poluting the tank along with pretty much a dead tank!!

I know, because I just did it 6 weeks ago.. I had a limewater OD. It triggered a bunch of invert deaths, which triggered more die off until my ammonia peaked at over 8.0ppm. (It was off the test kit chart, it could have been realisticly up to 12.0ppm.

Watched a lot of corals die before my eyes. I rescued the one fish I had in the tank before it died. I netted him and threw him in my QT tank with no acclimation. He's healthy and eating today from my hand in my QT tank.

My 125 is about ready for fish tomorrow. So, in short, don't do this.

 

[89Foxbody]

Buying an animal, snail or not, knowing that it will starve and die in your tank isn't exactly the nicest thing to do...

 

[schoch79]

Well again I was never planning on doing this. But in response to travis...my thinking is that when they died they would in turn be providing the food for the other starving cuc and not making all the ammonia and such from decaying....it would be just like adding fish food to feed the rest of the cuc. Thus eliminating all the nasties related to having decaying life in your tank. I mean to look at this on a bigger scale lets say fish. Whats the difference in feeding a feeder goldfish to a larger fish or having a feeder goldfish die in the tank and feeding the larger fish that way? Either way that would produce much less ammonia than letting a goldfish carcass rot in your tank right? Just food for thought.

 

[schoch79]

Oh, sorry I'm being stubborn on this. Just trying to think outside of the box.

 

[Coasterfrk]

I had 80 crabs and snails in my 55 quite a few unfortunately died but for the most part the dead ones where consumed almost instantly by the others.

 

[Frogmanx82]

One dead turbo snail can stink up a tank. I wouldn't have 50 of them. Hermits don't have the flesh mass of a turbo snail so I would think they are safer. I think it depends on size, big turbos would be a problem.

 

[HONDACBR600RR]

This may possibly be the best reasoning for what has been happening in my tank, I have recently noticed ammonia of about 20ppm, nitrates about 20ppm also, I have not been able to figure out why I have this ammonia since I dont overfeed, no fish deaths, weekly water changes and efficient skimming with a fuge for macro algae for nutrient export. Perhaps adding 25 ceriths, 25 turbos and 25 hermits at once was too much for my system to handle and it created this mess. I havent noticed much die off however I cant count the number of empty shells inside all the caves and such. What would be my best bet to help eliminate my ammonia as I am fairly certain this is the cause of my problem?

 

[Potsy]

I tend to have rather small clean up crews (if one could call them that). Right now, in my 50 gallon I have 9 astrea snails and that's it. They keep the rock free of diatoms and other micro-algae, but the rear glass and powerheads tend to accumulate algal film quicker than the snails can manage it. But, it's nothing that a very light scrubbing with a toothbrush can't solve. The nice thing is that since there's plenty of diatoms and microalgae to go around, my astrea thrive; they never lose their grip and land on their backs or die off. I have a bare bottom tank, so detritus isn't much of an issue. I really don't need hermits and the like.

It might sound strange, but I consider those snails to be animals under my care and I want them to do well, so watching them thrive and poop all day long makes me happy. Remember that they're much more advanced animals than any of our corals. It makes me a little sad to see tanks with dozens snails that are doomed to starvation.

 

[SushiGirl]

Isn't it cheaper to just buy food?

 

[S13<3]

im starting to hate my cuc, my BL hermits steal food from my corals and my turbos knock everything over and sometimes start sand storms trying to right themselves

 

[aleonn]

It's best not to overstock a tank, whether it's fish livestock or CUC. IMO I'd rather purchase too few CUC and slowly add more if needed.

 

[schoch79]

Well, thank you to everyone that humored my thoughts. It was just kind of a throw around idea. I appreciate the input that people have given as to some ideas of why this wouldn't work and some experiences with this. I too actually tend to have a too small cuc. I guess my initial thought of the whole thing was just poorly thought out. Then again it was just one of those things that randomly popped into my head LOL.