What size cleaning crew for 30gal.

[lunning]

I currently have 3 snails, an emerald crab, a sally lightfoot crab, and a hermit crab. I am now having an outbreak of brown algea and would like to know how many more cleaners I should have to help out.

 

[TekCat]

What kind of snails do you already have?
What kind of substrate do you have( BB/SSB/DSB)?

If I recall, Cerith snails like to chew on diatoms. Not sure about Mexican Turbos.

 

[lunning]

I have live sand as substrate. As for the snails I dont know what two of them are and the other one is a bumble bee snail.

 

[welshnumber8]

Yes i too would like to know any ideas on how many snails crabs etc you would have in this size tank. Any suggestions.

 

[michaelm2431]

I have a 30 gal. reef with all kinds of algea. I bought 3 zebra snails. 3 days later, not a trace of any kind of algea. 3 months, still nothing.

 

[MrChico]

Will a clean-up crew fix brown algea?

Becuase mine started 2 weeks ago and it is slowly getting worse. Is there something I can do to reverse it?

 

[PiNaPLeX]

astrea or turbo snails will eat the brown algae. I have a 29g and I have a mix of approx 26 cleaners in my tank:

1 emerald crab
15 small turbos
10 nassarius

the turbos take care of algae on my glass and rocks, and nassarius and emerald will take care of detritus on your substrate, this combination works very well for me so far. I stayed away from the hermits because i didn't want to litter my substrate with empty shells for them to move into when they get bigger.

 

[MrChico]

every now and then some one will post how crabs aren't reef safe.

what is the truth to this?

 

[dchao]

My list for a 30 gallon (list in order of size):

1 x Turbo
2 x Trochus
3 x Astraea
5 x Cerith
5 x Nassarius

2 x Scarlet Hermit

 

[Scuba_Steve]

some crabs are reef safe, some arnt. most hermits are reef safe though, especially scarlets