CUC Numbers?

[Juiceman]

I have a 90 Gallon Reef Tank with about 150 lbs of live rock, and a Crushed Coral Substrate.

I have like 15 cone Snails, 15 Hermits, and 1 turbo snail. Dunno if my Tile Starfish and Orange Linkia count or not.

I was looking at the ReefCleaners group buy, and saw their 105 Gallon CUC package had some 200+ Snails and stuff in it!

It got me wondering if I was severly shorting how much I should have in my tank.

How much do you guys have, and should I up my amount?

I do have alot Diatoms, and some Film algae, Tank is going on 3 months.

[+Lamont]

In my 75 gallons I have 6 cerith, 8 nassarius, 8 turban, 5 margarita snail. A sea hare and about 20 blue leg hermits and two red leg hermits. I also have a diamond goby cleaning the sand. I thinks i want to get more turban snails.

[DaJMasta]

It varies a lot from person to person and place to place, reefcleaners is somewhere in the middle.... maybe a little on the high side, but seems to emphasize smaller snails and no crabs. A small number of turbos can do a lot of damage to algae, takes a few more good sized nerites, and many, many ceriths to do the same job. The larger the snail of course, the bigger the chance of bulldozering frags.

I hope those aren't actually cone snails, but are cone shaped snails like trochus, astrea, or ceriths. Cone snails are parasitic and are quite small. Neither of those starfish count, but perhaps a brittle star would work.

If you're interested in cleaner sand, a sand sifting cucumber, starfish, or couple of conchs would be a good choice, but I would hold off a few months before you add them. Some more turbos would be great for GHA combat, but I've never thought of them as doing much on lesser algaes. I've had good luck with nerites, but they have a little tendancy to climb out - in the past year I've found maybe 3 outside the open topped tank. I've heard good things about trochus all around, but when I ordered some, their initial survival rate seemed to be rather low (despite a long drip acclimation), however the one of the 3 that survived seems to be doing good work.

If it were me - someone who isn't afraid of crabs in the tank and who wants a decent sized CUC - I would add:

2 emerald crabs

3 turbos (medium sized)

20 nerites (medium sized)

A sand sifting cucumber in a couple of months

10-20 nassarius (florida sized, not tonga sized)

1-2 serpent starfish or a seed colony of micro brittle stars

It's a fair addition, but it adds algae cleaning, sand sifting, and detrius eating capability. While it's somewhat heavy stocking for CUC, it shouldn't be so heavy that they starve each other out trying to get food.

[Juiceman]

I don't have a sand bed, I have Crushed Coral as the Substrate, so would I use those sifting CUC the same way?

and the snailsare shaped like cones, IDK what their official name is.

It varies a lot from person to person and place to place, reefcleaners is somewhere in the middle.... maybe a little on the high side, but seems to emphasize smaller snails and no crabs. A small number of turbos can do a lot of damage to algae, takes a few more good sized nerites, and many, many ceriths to do the same job. The larger the snail of course, the bigger the chance of bulldozering frags.

I hope those aren't actually cone snails, but are cone shaped snails like trochus, astrea, or ceriths. Cone snails are parasitic and are quite small. Neither of those starfish count, but perhaps a brittle star would work.

If you're interested in cleaner sand, a sand sifting cucumber, starfish, or couple of conchs would be a good choice, but I would hold off a few months before you add them. Some more turbos would be great for GHA combat, but I've never thought of them as doing much on lesser algaes. I've had good luck with nerites, but they have a little tendancy to climb out - in the past year I've found maybe 3 outside the open topped tank. I've heard good things about trochus all around, but when I ordered some, their initial survival rate seemed to be rather low (despite a long drip acclimation), however the one of the 3 that survived seems to be doing good work.

If it were me - someone who isn't afraid of crabs in the tank and who wants a decent sized CUC - I would add:

2 emerald crabs

3 turbos (medium sized)

20 nerites (medium sized)

A sand sifting cucumber in a couple of months

10-20 nassarius (florida sized, not tonga sized)

1-2 serpent starfish or a seed colony of micro brittle stars

It's a fair addition, but it adds algae cleaning, sand sifting, and detrius eating capability. While it's somewhat heavy stocking for CUC, it shouldn't be so heavy that they starve each other out trying to get food.

[DaJMasta]

Right, then none of the traditional sand sifters would be a good choice (cukes, stars, nassarius, conchs).... I should have read and understood that instead of just reading and ignoring

Hmmmmm.... maybe micro brittle stars would be even more appealing then? Because they'd actually be able to get into that substrate and do some cleanup, while I can't think of many other critters that could (small pods, maybe large crabs).

[Eric Alvarado]

I'm using crushed coral with no problems with nassarius. They're doing just fine.

[Timfish]

Over the years I've seen a lot of empty snail shells and not very many live ones in tanks. My preference is a few brittle/serpent stars with 1 or 2 cucumbers (NOT the filter feeding species) and 1 or two Sallylightfoots.