Clean up crew questions

[jkef2010]

What would you say is a must have or a must avoid part of a clean up crew and why. Other then snails and hermit crabs. Thanks

 

[tyler1503]

I love shrimp. Great little scavengers! I use palaemon serenus and never have any issues with them except a bit of cannibalism. In my opinion they are not only the most underrated CUC members, but also the best!
Urchins are great algae eaters and are fun to watch cruise around the tank. They will strip the rock of coralline though.
Fish aren't generally considered CUC members, but for algae I like rabbitfish and for uneaten food I like small gobies I have a one inch sand goby in my 120 and don't feed it. He's fatter then the sand gobies in my 5 gal that I feed daily and these ones in the 5 gal have pods and stuff to graze on during the day.
As for snails, I like turbos, nassarius and ceriths.
I'm not a fan of crabs or hermits.

 

[mrcoffee2]

What would you say is a must have or a must avoid part of a clean up crew and why. Other then snails and hermit crabs. Thanks

Here is what I think is essential in at least a 50g (if you have a sand bed)

Turbo Snails / Hermits
Nassarius
1 Sea cucumber maybe 2 depending on size
1 fighting conch snail.

The sea cuc and Conch snail will stir up your sand and clean it of debris... It is pretty important to me unless you want stuff to rot underneath the sand!

The nassarius will also stir up the sand and also eat decaying food.

IMHO

Urchins suck in a reef / frag tank. They knock everything over. If you dont have a lot of corals they could be pretty good! Like Tyler said they are cool to watch and great algae eaters.
Shrimp are opportunistic feeders, if your coral heavy be mindful. They are also very fun to watch

 

[kenzo]

What ever you get make sure that you don't get those dwarf zebra hermit crabs. I bought 4 of them for my 56 gallon tank and they killed 2 of my nassarius snails and then one day I saw one trying to kill one I immediately removed them from my tank. I have two scarlet hermit crabs. They are nice though!They don't bother anything in my tank and they are beautiful too!

 

[gemini9]

Emerald Crabs are pretty awesome imo. One or two would work for you. I have one and he's very peaceful. Looks pretty tough, but he's a shy guy and hides a good bit. But he's awesome. And you can't go wrong with a few cleaner (skunk) shrimp. Nassarius snails are fun to watch. they burrow into the sand until they smell food then they all pop out at once. They only eat leftover food tho, not very good for algae as I understand.