What CUC do you guys use?

[cleverbs]

I am going to add a cleanup crew to my tank. I havent ever really been a big fan but now that I am going BB I think It would be a good idea and I think it will keep my rocks a bit cleaner.

Right now my CUC consist of 4 serpant stars that are all about 10" around. No snails No Crabs

I was thinking about just getting a load of snails but am not sure what kind I should buy or how many. Like I said I have never been much of a fan of them.

 

[Wazzel]

A hand full of assorted snails, mostly asteria.

 

[DSMpunk]

Im a big fan of Trochus.

Astreas are great, but they always need flipping in my tank. Makes me wonder how they make it in the wild without someone turning them over all the time

 

[JB NY]

Asteas, trochus, mexican margaritas. I have a 270 tank I probably have around 120-150 snails in there.

 

[coral102]

Tons of info here... :rollface:

http://www.reefcleaners.org/

 

[vette.tech]

Im a big fan of Trochus.

Astreas are great, but they always need flipping in my tank. Makes me wonder how they make it in the wild without someone turning them over all the time

+1.....though I wish my LFS knew how much more awesome they were cause they never have any. I too have wondered about the astreas in nature as they must not live in the rocky reef areas or there is enough "stuff" to grab on to. I do however have an astrea that I've had for at least 3 years now that is damn near the size of a larger turbo and he never needs flipping

I like nassarius snails as well even though they constantly knock over corals in the sand bed when they come out for food

 

[JammyBirch]

Tons of info here... :rollface:

http://www.reefcleaners.org/

Be careful with reefcleaners, although you usually get more than what you ordered you also get stuff you didn't order which can me very bad. I ordered a snail only crew and got a bunch of hermits. WIthout knowing this i added them to the tank, they instantly started killing the snails for the shells. SLowly but surely i got the little hermits out of there that were trouble makers. It was a good lesson to QT the CUC to separate what i didn't want.

I have 2 blue leg hermits and 1 massive thin line hermit, nausarius snails, nerite snails, cerith and dwarf cerith snails in my tank.

Honestly the hermits do nothing...that i can see. I'm a huge fan of the cerith snails especially the dwarfs. They are tiny so they are not ugly to look at they churn up my sand bed, which i know you're going BB, and absolutely crush diatom blooms.

I'm a pretty big fan of nausarius too mostly because of the sand bed grooming, you may not need those, they get after detritus and food.

Nerites are always on my rocks and make them look good, try to get some small ones they bulldose corals a bit more than i like.

 

[Mercurio]

Be careful with reefcleaners, although you usually get more than what you ordered you also get stuff you didn't order which can me very bad. I ordered a snail only crew and got a bunch of hermits.

The same thing actually happened to me but I was also very impressed with the package I got. I've always been a fan of banded trochus but the nerites do a great job.

 

[30g]

cerith, dwarf cerith, one emerald crab, peppermint shrimp (1 or 2) and a skunk cleaner shrimp. nassarius snails and a few hermit crabs. they DO find extra food on the bottom and eat it

 

[JammyBirch]

The same thing actually happened to me but I was also very impressed with the package I got. I've always been a fan of banded trochus but the nerites do a great job.

I was pretty unhappy with the crabs i got on a snail only order, but like i mentioned you get more than what you order...so it worked out. I just had to find all of the little assassins before they killed everything. One thing i will say is John is a stand up guy, very helpful and nice to work with. I didn't gripe to him about the order in fact and i still use RC for CUC replacement soldiers.

Nerites are goons...they stick on the wall and do nothing for a week then all of the sudden they descend into the tank and go ape on the rocks. One thing i noticed about them is they like to just up and die without saying a word...i had one that was just sitting in place on the sandbed for a week, i fianlly grabbed him and he was dead, stinky and black stuff came out when i moved him. Weird...

Now i check these guys if they are not stuck on something...