Let's talk about cleaning crews

[albert_dao]

In anycase, don't get me wrong, I see a place for cleaning crews in the hobby. Unfortunately, it's usually in tanks that have been set up poorly or cycling. Mature, well set up tanks rarely need inverts crawling around to keep things in clean shape.

[andrewsk]

Albert,

What is the Background color you use on that tank. I like it a lot. I was trying to decide between Black and Blue but the other Blues I have seen are to dark. This is still blue, but gives more of the illusion of depth than the darker ones.

Thanks

[albert_dao]

It's pure white. Much better than blue or black, IMO. Makes the tank look super bright and, according to guys on RC, is better at reflecting light than tinfoil.

[TheReefGeek]

Pure white, interesting idea.

What bulbs are the new picture taken under?

[albert_dao]

Two XM 10k's and one XM 20k. They're pretty appealing to look at, but I suspect I'd much rather have had the Pheonix 14k's.

Go Pheonix for being ever so descriptive with their bulb packaging...

[TheReefGeek]

I run XM 20Ks and love em. Much of a price difference to the Phoenix in the same watts?

[albert_dao]

I dunno, I sell them all for the same price. I suspect the price difference in wholesale is nickels and dimes.

See, the thing is, I had the bulbs there for that tank, but I didn't know which bulb was which. All these stupid metal halide bulbs come in the same generic white cardboard box with only serial numbers. That said, I went with the XM's since I could readily ID the kelvin temperature.





ANYWAY, let's not get sidetracked. I have a more objective question:

We've established that cleaning crews are, more or less, an optional part of a well planned set up. That in mind, what species does everyone have the best success with? How about total failures?

Here's a few of mine:

Good - Trochus snails, Cerith snails, and small conches.

Medium - most non-predatory brittle stars, sea hares.

Terrible - Astrea, Turbo, ALL HERMIT CRABS...

[danny zubot]

This is only specific to my tank, which has no filimentous algea or sandbed algae.

EDIT*

Excelent:

Pistols shrimp/goby combo-will collect any unsightly snail shells, keeps the underside of rockwork clear of detritus, sifts through all sand.

Good:
Blue and brown legged hermits-for rock cleaning abilities
Zebra/fighting conch- for sandbed cleaning
Cleaner shrimp- for cleaning corals of detritus

Medium:
Any snails- really only clean the glass in my tank.

Terrible:
Olive snail-keeps sandbed mixed but is only seen once every other month.
Turbo's- knock over frags and die more frequently that other snails.

[TheReefGeek]

I would say that the single best cleaner crew in my tank in my dragon goby. He keeps the sand in my 180g nice and white, all by himself.

My tangs keep macro algae growth invisible.

If you have a hair algae problem, sea hares are priceless, but they don't live long.

My snails are fun to watch, but for cleaning they dont do much for me not even glass, because they don't do the whole glass, only patches. They probably help keep the rocks algae and detrius free though. I have a variety of snails, including cerith, astrea, and turbos, I would not buy turbos again though. I think there are two kinds of astrea, one that is good, one that sux, can't remember though.

Hermits are again fun to watch, but they do take down snails ocassionaly, and I don't SEE them eating detrius much, but they could be. If I had to pick one hermit to have, I would go with scarlets. They have never stolen a snails shell or killed for one, they don't go ape nuts over flipped snails like my zebras, brown legs, and blue legs do. The next least-agressive are my blue legs, I would not buy zebras or browns again. I had a couple hitchicker hermits that had black legs with orange bands, they were huge, and awesome, didn't bother anything.

[vertex]

Interesting thread everyone. I agree mostly that hermits are not that useful. I have about 15 blue legs in my 120G, but they are all at least a year old, as I won't be buying new ones. They only seem to hlep keep some detritus off the rocks. Red scarlets are agressive like the blue legs and seem to concentrate on small patches of algae for me, they are great, but I only have 3 of them.

As for Good snails: Stomatella, Cerith for sand bed tanks and Trochus / Astrea snails are my favorite. All these snails multiply fast in my tank (especially the trochus and astrea). Always have lots of tiny guys growing up in the sump. Once they are bigger, I toss em up into the display tank.