Cleanup Crew for a 180 gallon?

[ghenzler23]

Looking to strengthen my clean up crew. Any suggestions/recommendations of what would be a suitable amount of snails, crabs, starfish for a 180 gallon tank?

 

[homegrowncichlid]

add stuff as the tank grows too much too fast and they all just starve out or you'll end up feeding them directly. I prefer hermit crabs and urchins over everything else. Snails just get eaten by the crabs. I add hermit crabs in lots of 50, which I get online from amazon for ~$40 including 2 day shipping from KP aquatics. I feel an urchin does the same thing as snails, but they can actually protect themselves from predation. I like the tuxedo urchins, which stay small. I keep 50+ hermit crabs in my 65 gallon. In the past I've dumped 150 crabs which cleaned up everything within a week, then they all died out, probably as they fought each other over food.
A few snails go a long way, get species specific to target the algae you have, I like banded trophus snails for diatoms and film algae and astrea snails for hair algae. The black margarita snails live the longest, can right themselves and can protect themselves from hermits. Overall I feel snails and hermit crabs conflict since one preys on the other, so I just pick up local snails during low tide just to provide crabs with new homes.

So get a lot of 50 crabs, if you feel you need more, get another lot of 50. Then get 100 snails from the seafood market or the shore to feed to your crabs so they can upgrade their shells and live for the upcoming year.

Starfish eat a lot of algae, the blue linka? one is the only herbivore I can think of, but they are soo big and will probably stave out. Even if you found a starfish 2" in diameter (I've had those too, red caribbean ones) I don't think they can get enough nutrients from just algae alone, as it got smaller and smaller till it died. Not an expert on starfish, but urchins do well for a year and eats lots of stuff.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

The snails from the seafood market are just for you to eat, all the crabs need are the empty shells. The biggest snails you should get are the ivory whelks they have a stripy white/tan shell, don't put those live in your tank, they are predators.