Best CUC

[Krimzon]

Getting to the cuc era, today my tank will be 6 weeks and 1 day young. Getting a diatom bloom so I will need snails and/or hermits to clean it, and I also want a shrimp but mostly for entertainment purposes. So here's the criteria, for the shrimp it has to be peaceful and under $10 if it cleans fish or after fish that's a huge plus, but like i said the shrimp will be eye candy. For the snails/hermits I really need some that cleanup the sand and are proactive in eating algae... so let me know who you guys think are the best and what your experiences have been... key word being experience.. thanks.

 

[Krimzon]

bump

 

[MrDJeep123]

Ideally you want a well rounded crew. Detritus eaters, algae eaters, and sand sifters. Not a good idea to have a group of only one type of animal.
Asterea snails, nerites, Trochus, Nassarius snails. Some people like hermits, others don't. Emerald crabs are great. Conchs are a great choice as well as sand sifting cucumbers such as the tiger tail. Peppermint shrimps are a good choice for shrimps. Be mindful of fish choice.

 

[noobofthereef]

I'm not a huge fan or hermits. They knock things over and eat snails, and they really don't do that much. I would recommend nerites, ceriths, dwarf ceriths, astreas (but can't really get up when they fall over), and nassarius snails. Conches can get pretty big, so don't know if you want those.

 

[Krimzon]

Great answers, I do want a well rounded crew but I only have a 14g so I'm worried if i get a lot of critters they'll wipe out the algae too quickly and die. I was thinking like 1 hermit(i heard they don't kill snail if provided bigger shells) 2 snails and a shrimp.

 

[Dan1789]

They will always kill snails if they get a chance for an easy meal lol. Mine really only ate the Astraea snails (the ones that can't right themselves)

 

[Krimzon]

Hmm, all right no hermits then. How do you guys feel about bumble bee snails?

 

[Sicklid]

I like bumble bee snail for cleaning zoa colonies and small hoes on live rocks!!

 

[Krimzon]

small hoes

wait what? ... lol i am planning on getting zoas and i just really love the look of bumble bees so i might just get them for fun... besides common green hair and brown algae and detritus can snails thrive from waste and film algae?

 

[powdermonkey]

I suggest you take a few and read the reef keeping article. Below are a few excerpts.
[url]http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rs/

" If the snails are drip acclimated, the acclimation time may need to be on the order of five to ten hours for maximal survival"

".Given that they also are not warm water animals, they tend to die young and leave a good-looking corpse in the aquarium. Purchase them if you wish. I would spend my money on tropical species, however." Astrea Snails

"In other words, there are no snails of the genus Margarites that are found in warm tropical waters. One finds examples of the common North Pacific species, Margarites pupillus (Figure 13), offered for sale and this invariably leads to a quick death for this species if kept in reef aquaria. As with the species of Tegula, with which they share the common name "margarite" snail, they have no place in reef tanks. Still vendors persist in selling them. Go figure..."

" Although one often sees advice to add "x number" of these snails per gallon, such advice generally results in the death of most or all of the snails, as they generally exhaust their food source and starve to death. It is better to add them to a tank a few at a time until there are sufficient grazers in the tank so that at the end of the day there is a barely visible film of diatoms on the rocks or aquarium walls. "[/URL]

 

[Krimzon]

Good read, thanks. So i will stay away from astraea and margarite then. I didn't know diatoms grew after they initially came and went... so i guess it goes down to nassarius and ceriths then.