Your favorite cleaner crews

[kevindub]

It's time for me to buy some more cleaner critters. What are your favorites? I'm open to anything. Snails, shrimps, crabs, cucumbers starfish, fish, whatever. 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Well I'd probably remove starfish from that list, perhaps a brittle star, but I have thousands (guessing) of those mini brittle stars in ever crack and crevice in my rock work, not sure how much cleaning they actually do as their arms always pop out when I feed the tank.

shrimps are not really cleaners, yes they scavenge but if you need scavengers you're probably feeding too much.

Ditto with crabs

cucumbers are nice if you have a sandbed, one brown poop looking one I used to have eats sand and poops out clean sand, it was strangely fun to watch.

Snails probably are your best bet, nassarius for sandbeds as they will help turn it over, and are excellent scavengers in their own right, trochus for your rocks/glass, and if you have a serious algae problem maybe a turbo.

IMO don't go overboard and buy "the cleanup crew" I have maybe half a dozen snails in a 180g tank as my cleanup crew and they do just fine.

 

[Petsolutions]

I tend to go with a variety of snails in my personal tanks as well. When I go with turbos, which "turbo" I choose will depend on my tank temperatures to be honest. If it is in a tank that tends to be a little warmer than I'd like, I'll go with the Mexican turbos since from my experience they tend to be a little more high temperature tolerant than other types I've dealt with. I agree on the Nassarius for sand beds, as well as a cucumber (which I agree is entertaining to watch). I'm not sure that it really counts as a cleaner, but I will typically have one mithrax crab in any reef tank I set up as well (Emerald Crab).

 

[Len]

I'm big fan of fighting conches. My rocks tend to take care of themselves re: algae (maybe the tang is doing all the work), but the sand always needs some cleaning. Conches do a great job for me.

I dislike hermits. They always up and die on me If I start out with 50, I always end up with one (usually the biggest one). :lol:

 

[Minh Nguyen]

I like snails. I got tons of the Stomatella and those tiny conch. They reproduced in my tank so their population just expanded to the needed level. No crab or shrimp for me because they ten to eat all my Stomatella. Fast flow rate tend to keep my sand OK. I think it I can find a fighting conch or queen conch, I will put one in my tank. If I find a tropical abalone I will also put him in. My tank is only 58 g, it is really easy to overload it with cleaner creatures

 

[WRASSER]

always thought the conch family ate fish... ...is this true?

 

[Anonymous]

I use stomatella, astrea, cerith, and turbo snails as far as snails go(I had a fighting conch when I had sand, awesome like Len said). I like red legged hermits and they seem to last for me. I also have two emerald crabs, which are mowing through the algae and valonia like nobody's business. I have a serpent star, two skunk cleaner shrimp, and a peppermint shrimp for aiptasia control.

The only problem with hermits is that they love the cerith snail shells, which reminds me that I have not seen my ceriths in a while. :x

 

[Anonymous]

Speaking of cleaners-does anyone know if you can keep skunk cleaner shrimp with peppermint shrimp?

 

[Anonymous]

Speaking of cleaners-does anyone know if you can keep skunk cleaner shrimp with peppermint shrimp?

I do. The skunks are out all day and the pep is out at night.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks!