Time to replenish clean up crew; who to use??

[mvallee]

My tank has been running just over three years and I think the last of the clean up crew I bought has expired and time to replenish. I had used reef cleaners in the past and after spending time this morning building out a clean up crew of assorted snails, hemits, crabs and shrimp to the tune of $120 on their site I could not check out, kept redirecting to an error page and the cart finally ended up clearing itself Arghhh!! I have sent an email to Reefcleaners and will see what they say.

Who is your go to for good selection of CUC; Hermits, snails, shrimp, crabs, Bristles, reasonable shipping, decent in stock and most importantly good packaging? I feel like this has been gone over but my searches on the site turn up nothing relevant so sorry for the repeat.

 

[ReeferSutherland]

Reef cleaners has always been my go to for cleanup crew but last couple orders have been 50% doa

 

[coralfishreef]

Lots of doa from LiveAquaria too. Currently have a credit with them.

@frank180reef and @dz6t had some cleanup crew for sale recently. @N_E_M_O had some cleanup crew for sale as well.

 

[joe0813]

TSM.... after getting ich and wiping out almost my whole tank from a restocking of my clean up crew, ill never again get anything wet that hasn't been QT'd

 

[PSU4ME]

Yeah I’d be looking at a place that QTs. I’ve bought before from vendors on humblefish’s website that all arrived 100% alive. I’ve also tried to QT orders myself - not doing that again!

 

[N_E_M_O]

Lots of doa from LiveAquaria too. Currently have a credit with them.

@frank180reef and @dz6t had some cleanup crew for sale recently. @N_E_M_O had some cleanup crew for sale as well.

Thank you for the mention.
We are planning another pop up weekend in a few weeks, and will have a bunch of Inverts at our group buy prices.

 

[gobyvin]

FWIW, snails and a few hermits are all I think I have ever needed. In my humble opinion, most of the DOA animals might be caused by using snails and other CUC critters that are not true tropical animals (from semi-tropical waters... Mexico!!, Pacific side). Or due to terrible holding treatment. Since I have exclusively used Tiger Trochus snail that are captive reared, I have lost very few of them, in fact they reproduced in my tank and the young made it! In a 180, 14 large ones to start. They were already 4+ years old from another tank when added... now I have 120+ that are approaching adult size. I had to spilt the herd between two tanks or they might have began to starve. Coolest thing, I got to see it happen live and grab my phone to record it, I never thought we would get survivors!

 

[GraniteReefer]

Sometimes the reefcleaners website does that, frustratingly make the list and try again. As for the DOA, I have seen a few threads that complained about this earlier in the year. I placed an order to test if there was actually a problem. 95% of my order was alive and happy like normal and the amount ordered was less than the amount sent. John at reefcleaners is great.

 

[mvallee]

Sometimes the reefcleaners website does that, frustratingly make the list and try again. As for the DOA, I have seen a few threads that complained about this earlier in the year. I placed an order to test if there was actually a problem. 95% of my order was alive and happy like normal and the amount ordered was less than the amount sent. John at reefcleaners is great.

Thanks for all the replies
John did reach out a couple times and I ended up placing a new order without issue yesterday. Got a good variety with some 15 different species. Hoping my Melanaurus Wrasse and red tail trigger leave them alone and they get to do their job, my tank is in serious need.