What is your cleaning crew?

[cyro]

what can you say about reef safe clean up species?

what must i add?
ex. cleaning shrimp, turbo snail... ?


and which are the best solutions?
ex. peppermint shrimp for aiptasia.
for green hairy alges, Bristlewormes .... ?

regards..

 

[ChrisRD]

I like a variety of snails such as Trochus, Ceriths, Stomatella, etc. Hermit crabs are popular too, however, I prefer to avoid most crabs and shrimp as a lot of them can be aggressive toward the snails, steal food from certain coral species, etc.

IME true Peppermint Shrimp are effective against aiptasia and if you have an infestation they'd be a good first choice to combat the problem.

As for hair algae, some of the larger snails, conchs, urchins, etc. are all possibilities as well as several herbivorous fish. Nutrient control/reduction is a large part of the solution, however.

There are fish and crustaceans that will eat bristleworms, but personally, I would not be looking to eliminate them as most species are reef safe and excellent scavengers.

That's my $0.02 anyway...
...HTH

 

[Anonymous]

In a 72g bow:
1 lawnmower blenny
3 or 4 cerith snaile (maybe, if the 1 blue leg crab hasn't eaten them all now..) :?
1 emerald crab (who doesn't seem to do much good and is starting to look more like a opportunistic predator every day..)

But most important: Good, clean topoff water.

 

[RondaGP]

I only have a few. Some astrea snails, blueleg and scarlet hermits, cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimps, and a spiny brittle star.

 

[jschoon]

I just added my cleaners last night. Fed Ex delivered at 9:15PM after forgetting to load my box at the distribution site.

Any how, I have just added 9 margarita snails, 3 dwarf blue leg hermits, 4 dwarf scarlet hermits, 2 dwarf zebra hermits and a peppermint shrimp. I also have a yet to be identified snail that arrived with the LR. He is very small and I only find him every few days or so.