Clean up crew

[CarmieJo]

I've had my 54 gal AGA reef ready tank set up for about 3 weeks. I used 100# Southdown LS & 30# LR from an established tank and have never had any measurable NH3 or NO2. NO3 is 10. I've put some coral heads that I had from my FO tank back in the 80's in but nothing is growing on them yet. The LR has tons of feather dusters and clams, some vermetid snails and a few small 'shrooms. They are all doing fine. I added 2 hermits after 5 days and a chromis 3 days ago. Neither caused any change in my parameters.

I want to add to my clean-up crew. Besides the 2 hermits I bought one big snail and a bunch of small snails came along with my sand/rock. I think I would like some more hermits and a few cleaner shrimp. How many do you think that I could safely add at one time?

Thanks.

 

[ChrisRD]

Hi and :welcome:

Personally I prefer to avoid hermits - IME most crabs are little troublemakers! :wink: A couple of cleaner shrimp would be fine and it's OK to add them together. Other than that I would just add a variety of snails as needed such as Trochus, Ceriths and maybe a couple of Mexican Turbos as needed.

What I mean by "as needed" is that you should give the system time to get established. Don't load up on too many cleaner inverts right away because later-on after the initial algae cycles are over and the live rock is producing less detritus there won't be as much food to go around. Best to add stuff to address particular problems/algaes in small increments until you find a good balance IMO.

HTH