glowa8

HI all
I want to get some clean up crew for my tank.I was thinking to get some hermits and turbo snails.Which one you recommend and how many for 20g tank?

Angela_96

For my clean up crew I just researched a clean up crew for a 30g tank and cut it in half, I have a 14g tank. Its working out great so far.

au01st

Mixture of cerith, nerite, nassarius, astraea snails, maybe 3-4 each, one turbo snail, 3-4 blue leg and 1-2 scarlet reef hermit crabs, a brittle sea star, and a peppermint shrimp.

Matt

WOW THATS ALOT OF SNAILS. IS THE PEPPERMINT SHRIMP TRUE


From Matt

P.S. SOz about caps.

Angela_96

No actually that is about what is recommended for a 14g nano tank. I have one of the Nano Reef handbooks that is pretty much a widely recomended book right now, not to mention several of the SW forums have recommended that amt of clean-up crew. I know that 1 hermit for each 5g is a good number, and then 1 peppermint shrimp, then I have 4 different snails and 5 of each in my tank. My ammonia, nitrites, nitrates are staying at great numbers (ammonia and nitrites are staying at -0-, nitrates staying bellow 10ppm, and they are doing an excellent job cleaning).

Matt

Oh ok i didnt no lol.

nemo addict

peppermints are only really good if you have aptisia a skunk cleaner is better as they do actually clean the tank,live rock and your fish of parasites ,, when adding clean up crew you should add till you have a good balance so they dont starve or they end up eatin eachother or starve to death ,, as like humans they have a different appeitite some big some small , so if you get a pig then you are in trouble if you have to much ,, i had 6 hermits and one ate 4 so now i have 2 as he was a pig and tank was to clean and i have a 4x2x2 so he does a good job

glowa8

Sameone told to add clean up crew before fish and corals

Angela_96

I would go with adding your corals last, they are your most sensitive inverts. Your cleanup crew is good to start with. I have been told two different things, ad the fish and crew at the same time or ad the crew then the fish.

I am going on 2 months with my tank, and I am adding corals, I havent made up my mind on putting in fish or not since its a small 14g, its just so small.
I have one bunch of zoanathid(sp) on a peice of liverock in there, and I have another bunch that I am adding tomm (hopefully in the mail overnight right now to me).
I added bits of my cleanup crew a month ago in fear they would die instantly in my saltwater (no confidence in my sw keeping abilites, since its my first sw tank, I have kept FW for years) the I finished my crew up last week with no prob.

In the past 2 months, I have had the hair algae problem (gone now), cycled forever it seemed, and now I have a good healthy tank, that has a good pop of copepods I found yesterday, coraline algae that is taking over the liverock (its pink, and a teal green) FINALLY!)

Its just all a very long process.

glowa8

Yes it is a long process but is nice to see how your tank is changing.I want to get anemone for clown fish.Would you also recommend t add anemone after fish?

au01st

Lol. I probably have $200 worth of CUC inverts in my 75, added in over several weeks.

Angela_96

glowa8:
I love the different changes, I have noticed something new just about everyday. I really have noticed the coraline algae more than anything in the past week, its really taking hold in my tank (that really makes me happy, I was worried I would never get it going), of coarse I found a ton of copepods the other day as well.

Thats one thing, the CUC are not cheap! The day I bought my CUC I bought that bunch (minus 2 snails, and one red leg hermit) plus a bottle of calcium supplement, and a 30 nano powerhead, and a canister of cichild flakes for my mbunas (gotta feed my mbunas) the total came up to 170.00.. for a 14g tank... I am guessing my clean up crew was around 100 for the nano. I still am going back for a couple more tid bits tomm.

au01st

I actually got mine on eBay, shipped overnight. It was great, got to pick out exactly what and how many I want, and cost less than 1/4 the price at the local store.

One of these days I'm going to sit down in front of excel and figure out how much the tank has cost me...I'm just scared...

nemo addict

anemones need mature tanks so you should add until tank is about a year old ,,,, and depends on what clowns you have depends on the type they preffer to host ,, but some clowns will host anything from star polyps to bubble corals