Best Clean-Up Crew?

DalPal25

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 9, 2016
Messages
238
Reaction score
89
Location
Maine
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I'm getting a new 40 gallon NUVO tank and wanted to ask about clean up crew ideas. This will be my first saltwater aquarium so I'm not sure about anything to be honest. I just want to have many suggestions. I love colors and cool behaviors and personalities so I'll take all suggestions! Also obviously effectiveness is important too. Thank you!
 
Turbo snails and blue leg hermit crabs. You will want to make sure your tank has cycled first.
Yes, of course. Not rushing anything, just gathering info. Would you suggest to put them in before the fish or after?
 
Reefcleaners.org has great deals on CUC. And they have some really good uncommon cleaners.

Here's what I'd recommend for a decent sized bioload:

3 scarlet hermits. They are peaceful hermits who I have heard are the best cleaners. They are also very bright and vibrant additions. I don't have any personal experience with them however, so that's all I know.

3-5 blue legged hermits. They're also very peaceful and colorful additions. I have 2 and they're great, but they tend to be scavengers not algae eaters.

8 Florida ceriths. They tend to stay in top of the sand bed and live rock.

10ish dwarf ceriths. They're like the Florida ones, but they're smaller and will eat smaller detritus.

4ish narissarious snails. I know I spelled that wrong. They stir and clean the sand bed. They're kinda interesting to watch.

That's the staple CUC that you can get anywhere. You can supplement them with couple other glass cleaning snails of your choice.

Here's the cool interesting stuff you can get from them that you should consider:

5 limpets. Limpets are like snails, but flat. They're cool looking and spawn in tanks often. They'll hang out on your glass and live rock. They're pretty good at film algae.

1 fuzzy chiton. These are like super limpets. They're kinda creepy and really cool. They're very slow and through cleaners. They will devour every algae in their path.

20 zig zag periwinkles. These guys cost next to nothing, are very hardy, and quite pretty.

Some assorted hermits. This grab bag could get you come cool hermits who may eat something that nothing else in your tank goes for. Or one with a great personality. I just think the luck of it is fun too.

There is also a 1 penny macro algae sample. You may as well grab that.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, they have some other interesting stuff for sale there too.

One word of warning. You HAVE to feed you CUC until your tank is fully mature. So until you have fish and fish food going in, they can only eat what grows in there. However with no fish poop or fish food going in, there's not going to be much to eat. That will lead to starvation, and the CUC killing each other for food.
 
Welcome to R2R, @Roboson covered clean up crew very well. there are a couple of sponsors here that I have used in the past, Liveaquira, bluezoo these site have set clean up crews for the size of the tank needed.
 
863499fdae15fca0a44684bbfb668af8.jpg
 

IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 32 45.7%
  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%
  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%
  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
Back
Top