Clean Up Crew Renewal

[+brian.srock]

How often do you guys get a new batch of CUC for your tank?

I find that after a couple months my numbers have dropped and since only the tiny snails are reproducing I need to replenish my crew every 6 months at least.

[victoly]

i gave up. i vote never. i keep a few hermits and trade them in when they get unruly for smaller hermits. I've had fighting conchs, and a chiton do all of the heavy lifting in a 29 gallon. they just seem to die off.

[+Capt. Obvious]

my snails have been having orgies...thousands of snail babies everywhere

[jestep]

+1 for never. I found my last nerite 15 feet from my tank last year. Haven't added any CUC since. I do have an a** load of colonistas and asterina stars, but otherwise no snails and definitely no hermits.

[sifuentes31]

Had a ton of em then they slowly die off. So now i have a ton of shells littering the bed. The blue legged hermits are still doing good as long as they hide from my Picasso Trigger....

[+brian.srock]

I still have a couple hermits but I have been trying to replace them with peppermint shrimps but the other day I noticed there wasn't a single one left and I'm down to about 5 -7 turbos.

[RobR]

Yeah mine always start dwindling about the 4-6 month mark. But for me I try to do a re-enforcement of my CUC at least once a year...

[Planeden]

so, for the no CUC guys do you just manually remove waste and algae?

[victoly]

i sandbed vacuum maybe every month or so and clean the glass daily. I'm not no cleanup crew, i just dont buy in to the whole "you need 500 dwarf ceriths and 250 nerites for your 20g tank" camp. Maybe its my nutrient levels or my light feeding, but i spent more time picking out those dead black snails than i ever did cleaning glass or cleaning gravel during a water change.

[jestep]

so, for the no CUC guys do you just manually remove waste and algae?

Scrape glass weekly. Blast rock of with turkey baster whenever I can remember to do it, monthly at best. Otherwise nothing.

I did the whole large CUC in my previous 2 tanks and my current 2 tanks without any at all stay much cleaner. That could be completely coincidental, but if you have a bunch of inhabitants that are just going to continuously die off, it ends up being a constant stream of nutrients going into the tank. Maybe I'm wrong on this one, but has anyone who's added 20 or 50 or hundreds of ceriths, nassarius, and nerites had more than a handful after a year or so?

The only inverts that I would intentionally add solely for the purpose of cleanup are turbo snails and emerald crabs. A single turbo is easily worth 20 nerite snails and emerald's are pretty good at knocking out bubble and few other algaes that nothing else will touch.

[Sascha D.]

In my 180 I added 30 Mexican Turbo snails, 4 Sally Lightfoots, 2 Brittle Stars, 4 peppermints, 20 hermits and barely noticed they were there. The snails often left tracks along the glass where they had been, but left most of it for my Mag. The stars and shrimp disappeared as soon as they went into the tank and the crab came out every so often when he was hungry. The hermits destroyed my snails and took their shells one by one. When I dismantled the tank 5 years later, 2 shrimp, 2 hermits, and both stars were all that remained.

In my new 150, I play to lightly stock Mexican Turbos, Peppermint, Skunks, Linckia, and Nassarius Snails. Crabs are nothing but trouble, which is why they make a cream for them. True story!

[Planeden]

so, for the no CUC guys do you just manually remove waste and algae?

Scrape glass weekly. Blast rock of with turkey baster whenever I can remember to do it, monthly at best. Otherwise nothing.

I did the whole large CUC in my previous 2 tanks and my current 2 tanks without any at all stay much cleaner. That could be completely coincidental, but if you have a bunch of inhabitants that are just going to continuously die off, it ends up being a constant stream of nutrients going into the tank. Maybe I'm wrong on this one, but has anyone who's added 20 or 50 or hundreds of ceriths, nassarius, and nerites had more than a handful after a year or so?

The only inverts that I would intentionally add solely for the purpose of cleanup are turbo snails and emerald crabs. A single turbo is easily worth 20 nerite snails and emerald's are pretty good at knocking out bubble and few other algaes that nothing else will touch.

interesting about the dirty clean up crew and clean clean up crewless tanks. maintence on you new tanks does not seem much more than you would expect on any tank. i have to get way better at basting to make that work, though.

i don't understand large CUCs either. it seems like you should have a CUC sized for your tank. not some random "100 snails per gallon" thing. but have enough to keep things clean but not litter the battle field with shells.

i personally like to watch my CUC. i like feeding the tank and watching snails erupt from the sandbed, hermits scramble out of their holes, and bristle worms poking out of cravaces. to me it is an enjoyable part of the tank.

anyway brian, this wont be worth much. but i bought a small crew when the tank finished cycling. for a 40 gallon tank i got a standard CUC for a 30 gallon and a fuge kit from patrick that included about 20 dwarf cerith snails (but they have already made more of themselves). my plan is to leave it alone and then add as needed. most of what i bought still seems to be hanging around. algae on the glass has not been a problem. But my sandbed does not seem to be stirred enough, so i am thinking i may pick up 2-3 nassarius snails and see how it does. basically just adding what is needed based on what the tank looks like.

[esacjack]

in my live rock tank I have 2 turbo snails and 6 trochus snails. I havent had any die off of any kind in a year. I had some margarita snails in there (4 of them) but as soon as the temperatures warmed up outside, they croaked.

In my 7.5 I have 2 snails. (trochus)

in my 29 I have 5 snails (turbo and trochus)

and in my 10g AIO I have 2 snails. (trochus)

I honestly think buying 1 CUC per gallon is ridiculous. All you're really doing is guaranteeing the bristleworms have something to eat.

[+brian.srock]

I scrap the glass daily just because it's routine but it can go 2-3 days without cleaning. My sandbed does have a thin coat of algae on it but I think it was because I haven't changed the filter media in my phosban reactor and its slowly disappearing.I also run skimmerless so maybe the low CUC is helping me.

I tried buying CUC online but even when you try to buy their cleaner packages rated fro your tank you just get the tiniest snails in the world. I now just get about 5 or 6 huge turbos from AquaTek every 3 months. I'd get more if they weren't so expensive and whenever Bio or anyone else would make a trip to the coast I'd pick up peppermints from them. The sand bed is the only thing that bugs me in my tank but I just use a long handle scraper to churn up the sand every now.

[Planeden]

How deep is your sandbed? I'm hoping that i will get a well estabilished crop of worms to stir my sand for me and then the nassarius snails also. the snails are like bulldozers and may replace your long handle. although, i'm not sure if getting rid of the algae on the sand will just feed the algae on the glass. but, i have never really noticed my snails eating algae off the sand. i think the hermits might.

sorry, it'd be more helpful if i knew which hermits i had that may clean the saned. i know there are a lot of types and probably highly varied diets.

[(Bio)³]

I've never vacuumed a SW tank sand bed. But with this nano build im working on I bought CC for a substrate and plan to vacuum it Biweekly

[Niko's Reef]

I broke down my 90g, 120g, (2) 40gs, 20g recently. I was expecting to find a crap load of cuc, but no luck. Considering how much I bought, I probably had 30 at best of snails, hermits. Just reup'd today. 100 turbo snails, 100 hermit crabs, 25 peppermint shrimp, 12 conchs. I reset up my 120g, added a 70g and a 180g. Plan on splitting it up between all 3. I feed heavily, so I feel like it's a must for me.