[kwirky]

long winded reply:

Here's some of the stuff I find works well for controlling algae that's WAY better than any clean up crew. it's more like correcting the cause of the problem:

Number one: get the detritus out of the tank. Lots of ways to do it. Increasing your flow and having more random flow sweeps detritus off the bottom of the tank so it can make it into the sump where your skimmer has a chance of removing it. I even run a wavemaker in my sump to make sure nothing settles. Siphon out detritus at least weekly from the bottom of the tank and the sump. Blow off your rock with a turkey baster to prevent detritus from accumulating on the rockwork. Blowing your rock off really helps with hair algae.

Number two: Manage the nutrients that manage to dissolve from unremoved detritus. You can't remove all the detritus and some will dissolve. You can cut it off before it turns into algae by running a good phosphate media or a biological system (vodka dosing, zeovit, prodibio, reef fresh, etc). Water changes work well too. The more natural way is using the clean up crew to eat any algae growing from your unremoved detritus. The idea is that the nutrients are turned into energy. It's nutrient export. But remember that snails and crabs poop too and that's going to dissolve into some detritus as well. Cleanup crew nutrient export is probably 5% as effective as water changes and phosphate media for instance.

I think snails are more for decoration and a little bit of algae cleanup but if you prevent the algae in the first place than you'll see less of it on the glass. And besides they clean it up all random like and just leave lines in the film making it even more noticeable. Hermit crabs however are awesome. I love left handed hermits and fairy hermits. They work like little lawn mowers in large numbers and will completely clean a tank of hair algae if you have enough. Just remember to siphon out the little pile of hermit poop that will develop quickly on the bottom of the tank or else it'll dissolve and turn into algae again. I have 30+ in my 45g sps tank and I think they're great at keeping the rock looking nice.

All in all the poop has to leave the tank. Whether you have a cleanup crew or not siphoning out detritus really helps. This long winded reply could be summed up in: "No clean up crew will replace manual labour." hehe