fighting conchs are potentially the coolest footed (is that a word?) mollusk i have ever seen. they stay in the sand, cleaning as they go. queen conchs get very large, and will roam across rocks and glass.

apparently cucumbers spew their guts out through their mouths when they are stressed or die, which is obviously on the toxic side of things. perhaps someone can confirm. however enough people keep them that i don't actually think it's much of an issue.

155g has 5 scarlet hermits, 20 adult cerith, 100+ juvenile cerith, 20 astrea, 1 million tiny little snails that come out at night. Fish cleaners are 2 tangs.

I have practically nothing in my 120gal. Maybe a dozen astrea snails, 3 turbos, maybe 4-6 nassarius, and possibly 2-3 emerald crabs. For some strange reason every time I put snails in the tank they die within days. The only ones left are the ones that have been in there since the tank's been setup.

I guess my best cleanup guy in there right now is my foxface. It looks like he's single handedly doing all the work on my algae!

for what it is worth I don't think I would waist my money on nassarius again nore would I recomend them to anyone else. Not that they are bad but I feel you get way more bang for your buck with cerith and Astrea.

in my 94 I have 15 blue legged hermits, 15 scarlet hermits, 30 Astrea, 30 cerith, 200 baby cerith, 10 nassarius, about 50 large stomatella, thousands of small stomatella relitives, 1 fighting conch, hendreds of bristle worms, probably millions of bugsw, and i used to have 15 margareta snails. the number of large snails has gone down a bit from the hermits though.

fish cleaners are a yellow tang a flame angel, and a lawnmower blennie.

Steve

Steve, they don't do the same thing, comparing apples to roast beef comes to mind. Nassarius sp. snails are sand bed scavengers of dead "meat". Cerith sp. and Astrea sp. are herbivores. Nassarius help to eat left over food and detritus, as well they help with sand bed turnover.

38G:

Snails:
6 Astrea
6 Margarita
10 Cerith
6 Bumble bee
6 Nassarius
3 Money cowries
3 Ringed cowries
1 Nerite
1 Strombus
~20-30 baby astrea,margarita,cerith snails

Crabs:
8 Scarlet hermits
8 Blue legged hermits
4 South American red legged
4 Zebra left handed
1 Electric blue hermit
2 Porcelains
1 Emerald

Parasite cleaners:
2 cleaner shrimp
2 fireshrimp
2 sharknose gobies
1 neon goby

Misc:
1 Tiger tail cucumber
1 Fighting conch

Hitchhikers:
hundreds of bristleworms
stomatellas

Not going to include fish like Tangs, etc in my list. :)

http://www.crazypics.de/smilies_froe...oehlich027.gif


http://www.crazypics.de/smilies_froe...oehlich032.gif

The smilies echo my sentiments exactly. I love to agree.

Do you drip-acclimate? I noticed a big difference in mortality rate when I drip-acclimated vs not. When I drip-acclimate, most survive. When I don't, they (Margaritas) almost all die within weeks.

yup i know this, but that is also what the bugs and worms do... enuf said.

Steve

My cleanup crew for my 27gl reef consist of:

6x astrea snails

6x cerith snails

12x blue leg hermits

2x fighting conch

2x cleaner shrimp

2x yellow watchmen gobies

2x small cowries

1x peppermint shrimp

I have kept these numbers for a few years now and I'm very happpy with the cleaning that takes place.

cheers, Rich