a few CuC questions

[Joel A]

I want to add a few more things to my clean up crew for a few reasons.

First thing is shrimp.. i havent had any for a while, and once i get rid of my lionfish i would like to try them again... i like 2 kinds, the skunk cleaner and the blood red fire cleaner shrimp. From what i have heard the skunk cleaner does a much better job actually cleaning, but they dont look as awesome as the fire shrimp.. so my question is can i keep both types in a 75 gallon tank, or should i stick to just the skunks?

Another question is starfish. I really like the harlequin starfish, as well as the red formia (Sp?) starfish. They are both supposed to be reef safe, and both are cool too look at, but should i get one, and which one will do a better job actually cleaning?

Final question is for a sand cleaner... I'm looking for something that will do a really good job cleaning and sifting my not so pretty sand... i hear cucumbers and sea slugs do a great job, but how do i know that its not one of the crazy ones thats going to nuke everything?





With my actual clean up crew, i have about i'd say 15 hermits, 8 astrea snails, 6 or 7 mexican turbos, and 4 cerith snails... should i beef that up a little?

 

[stingythingy45]

I want to add a few more things to my clean up crew for a few reasons.

First thing is shrimp.. i havent had any for a while, and once i get rid of my lionfish i would like to try them again... i like 2 kinds, the skunk cleaner and the blood red fire cleaner shrimp. From what i have heard the skunk cleaner does a much better job actually cleaning, but they dont look as awesome as the fire shrimp.. so my question is can i keep both types in a 75 gallon tank, or should i stick to just the skunks?

Sure you could keep both in a 75 gallon.I have a very large Coral Banded,peppermint and a Skunk in a 55 and they all avoid each other.

Another question is starfish. I really like the harlequin starfish, as well as the red formia (Sp?) starfish. They are both supposed to be reef safe, and both are cool too look at, but should i get one, and which one will do a better job actually cleaning?

I don't know much about starfish.I'll be watching this answer from someone that does as I'm interested in getting one also.

Final question is for a sand cleaner... I'm looking for something that will do a really good job cleaning and sifting my not so pretty sand... i hear cucumbers and sea slugs do a great job, but how do i know that its not one of the crazy ones thats going to nuke everything?

Get a bunch of (10-20) nassarius snails and a few conchs.
I want to get a few conchs myself.





With my actual clean up crew, i have about i'd say 15 hermits, 8 astrea snails, 6 or 7 mexican turbos, and 4 cerith snails... should i beef that up a little?

Get more ceriths also.They go in the sand and clean that also.

 

[afboundguy]

From what i have heard the skunk cleaner does a much better job actually cleaning, but they dont look as awesome as the fire shrimp..

I've had both a skunk and a fire shrimp (at different times) and I will agree in my case that the skunk was a much better cleaner but the fire looks way better

 

[JayM]

I have 3 fire shrimp and 2 cleaners in my 92. There is a CBS too. There used to be 2, but they had a steel tank death match,and only one survived.

For some reason, I cannot keep peppermints

 

[Joel A]

So Jay, do you see your fire shrimp and skunks ever go at it?

I'd love to keep a group of maybe 3 skunks, and maybe a pair of fire shrimp in my 75 gallon?

 

[alpha0r]

Nassarius vibex snails for the sand. They do a very good job.

 

[randoma]

I want to add a few more things to my clean up crew for a few reasons.

First thing is shrimp.. i havent had any for a while, and once i get rid of my lionfish i would like to try them again... i like 2 kinds, the skunk cleaner and the blood red fire cleaner shrimp. From what i have heard the skunk cleaner does a much better job actually cleaning, but they dont look as awesome as the fire shrimp.. so my question is can i keep both types in a 75 gallon tank, or should i stick to just the skunks?

Another question is starfish. I really like the harlequin starfish, as well as the red formia (Sp?) starfish. They are both supposed to be reef safe, and both are cool too look at, but should i get one, and which one will do a better job actually cleaning?

Final question is for a sand cleaner... I'm looking for something that will do a really good job cleaning and sifting my not so pretty sand... i hear cucumbers and sea slugs do a great job, but how do i know that its not one of the crazy ones thats going to nuke everything?





With my actual clean up crew, i have about i'd say 15 hermits, 8 astrea snails, 6 or 7 mexican turbos, and 4 cerith snails... should i beef that up a little?

Mixing fire shrimp and cleaner shrimp in the same tank is fine. But you'll want to get ones that are similar in size. All shrimp are cannibalistic to an extent (peppermints more so than others) and if there's not enough food, they'll eat each other.

I currently keep two pairs of fire shrimp and one pair of cleaners as well as half a dozen peppermints in a 65. All of the fire shrimp and cleaners are very large - about 3" long. The fire shrimp look like little lobsters.

Shrimp are somewhat territorial, but they only really need enough space so that their antennae are not touching any other shrimp - about 8"x8" or so. CBS shrimp are much more aggressive about their territories than others.

In my experience starfish are not very efficient cleaners. Serpent and Brittle stars are good scavengers, but shrimp are better and if you have a tank with lots of shrimp, you'll need to supplement the food for the stars. The other starfish that I have (Fromia/Linckia/Protoreaster..etc.) tend to be very slow moving and you have to actually put food under them...

Sandsifting stars will keep your sand bed clean - too clean, in my opinion, unless you have a really large tank.

For detritus and scavenging, I find a fairly high concentration of peppermints (1-3/square foot of tank bottom, or 6-18 in a 75) and nassarius snails (4-8/square foot of tank bottom, or 24-48) to be very effective.

Most of the snails that you have are algae eaters - if you don't have sufficient algae, I would not add anymore snails. Ceriths will eat detritus, but they're not very efficient. I actually find emerald crabs, in fairly high concentration (2-3/square foot of tank bottom) to be much more effective at non-film algae reduction than anything else. However, as they get larger they can become fairly aggressive scavengers and stop eating as much algae.

For sea cucumbers, the ugly brown/black cucumbers are not very toxic and are very good at cleaning the sandbed and keeping it turned over.

Urchins are very effective scavengers/omnivores but they tend to be knock everything over, so you need to mount all your coral to large rocks instead of frag plugs. Also, they may eat coralline algae, which may be a bonue or a detraction depending on your point of view.

 

[Joel A]

Wow, thank you for that awesome post randoma.


So heres my plan, basing it on randoma's post.

Adding:
30 nassarius snails
2 fire shrimp
3 skunk cleaner (should i maybe go with 4?)
1 black/brown cucumber.

Maybe a smaller serpent star (i really like the look of em, even if they dont help as much as others.)


Personally i don't really like pepermints. I can never find big ones, and they tend to be very fragile IME.


I would like an urchin if it ate coralline, as my tank gets COVERED very fast (i must have good mag/calcium levels at the moment?) but, I also hear that they need a lot of algae to survive without nori feeding, and with buffing up my crew already, i would want to be sure i could provide enough algae.

 

[randoma]

Wow, thank you for that awesome post randoma.


So heres my plan, basing it on randoma's post.

Adding:
30 nassarius snails
2 fire shrimp
3 skunk cleaner (should i maybe go with 4?)
1 black/brown cucumber.

Maybe a smaller serpent star (i really like the look of em, even if they dont help as much as others.)


Personally i don't really like pepermints. I can never find big ones, and they tend to be very fragile IME.


I would like an urchin if it ate coralline, as my tank gets COVERED very fast (i must have good mag/calcium levels at the moment?) but, I also hear that they need a lot of algae to survive without nori feeding, and with buffing up my crew already, i would want to be sure i could provide enough algae.

I would probably get either 2 or 4 cleaners. They're hermaphroditic, but they seem to form pairs once they've been in the tank a while.

Peppermints are somewhat disposable - *everything* eats them and they're very vulnerable when molting. I've had a few last a year or so, but that's pretty long for a pep. It really depends on how well fed the tank is though - if you feed rarely and small amounts your peps will get eaten.

I only have direct experience with pencil, pincushion, blue tuxedo and long spine urchins. Pencil urchins will do fine without any algae at all. The rest seem to prefer algae but will eat detritus/meaty foods if they have to. Supplementing with nori isn't too hard - just put the urchin on a piece of nori.

 

[Joel A]

Yeah, I know its not too bad... and i really like the little guys... but i'm just afraid of overstocking my clean up crew... what do you think?

As for the urchins have you noticed any one type more likely to munch on coralline?

 

[kotu100]

joel, another option for your send bed could be a goby. i just picked one up at underwaterworld, and hes deff sifting that sand good.

also i plan on goin up to the aquarium gallery soon to add to my CuC, and i believe they have the best prices on inverts.

could save one of us the trip.

 

[randoma]

Yeah, I know its not too bad... and i really like the little guys... but i'm just afraid of overstocking my clean up crew... what do you think?

As for the urchins have you noticed any one type more likely to munch on coralline?

As long as your biosystem can handle sufficient feeding, they'd probably be fine. I'd try adding a few shrimp at a time and step up your feeding slightly each time. I keep a LOT of shrimp in a few tanks and usually don't have much trouble with predation, but I feed 2-3x/day and quite a lot per feeding. On our ex-coral tank, which was fed 1x/day and very little, peppermints tended to become fish food.

None of the tanks that I have urchins in have any coralline to speak of, so I don't really know...

 

[alpha0r]

As for the urchins have you noticed any one type more likely to munch on coralline?

I had a pincushion urchin in my 29 for about a year. He ate all my coralline in about two weeks. I took him to the LFS about a month ago and my coralline is making a comeback.

 

[Joel A]

I feed very rarely at the moment, as the only substantial fish i own is the lion, and he gets fed every other day, or every other third day..

But as i start to add more fish i will feed more..

tell me what you guys think of a stocking like this..

2 true perc clownfish
3 Anthias (not sure of type yet)
1 Butterfly fish (either semi or cb, not sure yet)
Maybe a tang, maybe a mandarin.


Kotu- i'm actually heading up that way either tomorrow or sunday, i'm going to jays though, not AG. I'll let you know how the prices are at Jays as well..

I'd like to do that sometime.. and sorry i forget, did i meet you, or your brother? I'd like to see your tank sometime too. Its nice now to have a few other reefers in easton.. for a while i was the only one on the boards.

 

[Joel A]

I hope that if i got one he wouldn't eat it all I'd be happy if he just kept the front and sides a little cleaner so i didn't have to scrape every other day =).

I had a pincushion urchin in my 29 for about a year. He ate all my coralline in about two weeks. I took him to the LFS about a month ago and my coralline is making a comeback.

 

[alpha0r]

I hope that if i got one he wouldn't eat it all I'd be happy if he just kept the front and sides a little cleaner so i didn't have to scrape every other day =).

Mine very rarely (ever?) went on the glass. I'm not saying they don't but I can't remember seeing mine on the glass. He was very hearty though. He lived though a massive macroalgae sexual event.

 

[kotu100]

I feed very rarely at the moment, as the only substantial fish i own is the lion, and he gets fed every other day, or every other third day..

But as i start to add more fish i will feed more..

tell me what you guys think of a stocking like this..

2 true perc clownfish
3 Anthias (not sure of type yet)
1 Butterfly fish (either semi or cb, not sure yet)
Maybe a tang, maybe a mandarin.


Kotu- i'm actually heading up that way either tomorrow or sunday, i'm going to jays though, not AG. I'll let you know how the prices are at Jays as well..

I'd like to do that sometime.. and sorry i forget, did i meet you, or your brother? I'd like to see your tank sometime too. Its nice now to have a few other reefers in easton.. for a while i was the only one on the boards.

we never met so it was prolly my brother. i need to get more corals, a bigger sump, and build a hood then i'll start showing it off lol.

 

[Joel A]

I need to get my sump working right and stock up on corals as well =).


I just finished my hood lol.

 

[stingythingy45]

Joel,

Unless you plan on covering your tank very tightly,don't get a sand sifting goby....just my 2 cents.

 

[Joel A]

yeah, they are leapers and my tank is open atm. Good point. are mandarins jumpers too?