Ok I think my tanks salinity was off a little. Plus I didn’t have any fish in there. So of the 50 package I still have the following
-serpent star
-Caribbean cowrie (Lazy during the day…my type of guy. LOL
-I think 2 emerald crabs (these buggers are the hardest to see)
-12 Nassarius snails (approx.)
-8 Astrea Snails
I think my acclimation was bad. I have learned a lot but what now. Should I get some more? Should I add something else?
when it comes to clean up crews, i like to keep it simple. snails and hermits. some of the bigger crabs(sally light foots, emeralds,etc) can get nasty. I have a sally light foot and a sandsifting starfish but its my crabs/snails that keep everything clean.
ive got some nassarious that you can have if you interested. they breed like crazy in my tank.
i think they all pretty much behave the same, so it comes down to price and aesthetics.
i have probably 50ish blue leg and i even have one or two scarlet that i bought when i was a newb about 5 years ago. i prefer to have a lot of snails/hermits that stay
small as opposed to less that get large. im not a big fan of turbo snails the size of fifty cent pieces all over the glass ;D
I have a bunch of snails that ive been throwing in my fuge. You can swing by and grab them and take a look at my system. i live about 3 miles from PA.
Well for a CUC for my 90 I have one brittle star, a queen conch, a fighting conch, about 8 asteras, a ton of stomotella snails, about 20 assorted hermits, yellow tang (eats any algae on rocks), 2-3 bumblebee snails, and 2-3 margarita snails.
Not really alot, and I know alot of people do more, but they keep my rocks clean, and other than what the mag float cleans off every other day I have to scrape algae (green coralline is a pain) about once a month.
I have 2 red hermits you are more than welcome to have. They did a bang up job when first introduced, took care of all the algae, but have since slowed down. I would like to get rid of them, to get an emerald, but do not have the heart to kill them. Yours if you are interested.
I would recommend nassarius(jumbo and normal), a fighting conch, and maybe one sand sifting star. The conchs do the best job I think. Nassarius are great, but you need to get a number of them or be lucky enough to have them multiply to do the trick. Sand sifting stars don’t really do a heck of a lot in my experience, but then again they don’t take up a lot of bio load either and aren’t too expensive.
I completely agree with Logan’s daddy and the crabs. Snails and hermits do a great job and most other crabs end up causing problems.
Currently in most of my tanks I plan on keeping Turbos and money cowrie for algae cleaning, and fighting conch in the tanks that have sand beds.
I think I want a fighting conch. Anybody have a good place to get one from?
I have these damn emerald crabs now. Cant get them out. I can barely find them. Can I keep hermits and emeralds toghther? I wish I would have known that before I had them added to the package.
Jon you are right about that damn star. He is useless and lazy but freindly. The kids love him.
the emerald crabs will be fine with the hermits. i agree with jon about the sand sifting. i dont think they consume a lot but they do a good job of keeping your sandbed stirred. they are also very easy to keep. i still have my original SSS from when i was starting in this hobby. he has survived a lot of my mistakes over the years. another strange thing about SSS, at least IME, is they dont grow! ive seen HUGE ones in LFS and mine is the exact same size he was almost 5 years ago.
I know a little place that has a couple different species of conchs.
Don’t worry too much about emeralds. Some people have trouble keeping them for long they disappear into the rock work permanently some times. They are also only bad sometimes. Some people have luck with them and they never bother anything. I’ve kept them with hermits several times in the past and I have never heard of anyone losing hermits to an emerald.
i think you should be safe with just about any fairy wrasse or other reef safe wrasse, its the big nasties that you got to worry about.
I saw that christmas wrasse, very beautiful. My best advice before you buy any wrasse is to jump proof your tank. your going to need eggcrate or mesh, or a canopy or some other method.
It is guarenteed that if you dont it will end up carpet surfing on you. These guys are serious jumpers. Ive had two end up this way. The 2nd one was in what i though was a jump proof tank :-("
I’ll 2nd that. Ive heard my yellow wrasse ping off of the reflectors more than once. Egg crate wont really bother the lighting as long as you have it the right way down (i think it is supposed to have flat side down pointy side up?). It will block some, but it will also anyone from trying to fly.
logans_daddy: “before you buy any wrasse is to jump proof your tank” Very good point to bring up. I lost two of my oldest fish that way in the last year. Once the tank was covered more then 90% with glass.
Icy: “but it(egg crate) will also (keep) anyone from trying to fly. " Carefull with a statement like that, we have had some fairly skinny wrasses in such as the yellow and green choris wrasses which may be skinny enough to fit through egg crate. Someone told me I should egg create the top of a tank before I add a snow flake eel. I added the egg crate and left the water 3” low… next morning I picked my dried up eel off the carpet and put him back in the tank.(still alive after that and two other escapes) Wrasses you probably wouldn’t be as lucky bringing back after a jump.
