Cleaner crew- Are yours doing their job?

vetteguy53081 · May 23, 2023

This time of the year , we encounter more algae due to warmer temps and longer days with window light from the sun.

Many of us have various snails and other cleaner crew.

What is in your cleaner crew and Are they doing their job?
Which is your favorite cleaner and why?

My best workers are astrea snails followed by cerith. I have no algae and these snails are always on surfaces and glass, mainly cerith on the glass. I also have a few Carribean blue leg Hermits

Often we have the right snails , but in some cases, algae can grow so fast that they cant keep up with the rate of growth of algae. Also, when we use the term cleaner crew, we automatically think of snails. There are other cleaners , afterall- their name is just that- to clean. Some others are:
Crabs
Shrimps
conchs
Urchins
Starfish
hermit crabs

CWalters · May 23, 2023

Tuxedo Urchin
Blue Leg Hermits
Astrea snails
Turbo snails
Trochus snails
Cerith snails
Fighting conch

I'd have to say my favorite is probably my conch. Always fun to watch it move around and it keeps my sand bed almost spotless

WestMI-Reefer · May 23, 2023

Favorite: Trochus snails. Hard working, stay in the tank, can flip themselves, capable of reproducing in aquarium, look cool.

worst: Hermit crabs. They are cool to look at, but if you look long enough you will spot them doing something menacing and destructive. Constantly walking on corals, ripping food out of a coral mouth, making a mess of frags. And they are savage killers! They take out snails and each other. I once witnessed one attack and kill another hermit and not even take the shell. As though it was killing for pleasure lol. I have relegated most of them to the sump.

vetteguy53081 · May 23, 2023

CWalters said:
Tuxedo Urchin
Blue Leg Hermits
Astrea snails
Turbo snails
Trochus snails
Cerith snails
Fighting conch

I'd have to say my favorite is probably my conch. Always fun to watch it move around and it keeps my sand bed almost spotless

Conchs are often overlooked and very good bulldozers with algae

Lbrdsoxfan · May 23, 2023

vetteguy53081 said:
Conchs are often overlooked and very good bulldozers with algae

I'm huge on conches as sand shifters, IME almost better than a sea cucumber (with a lot less risk).

doubleshot00 · May 23, 2023

Big astrea's are awesome; small ones not so much.
Turbos are my go to for rocks.
Then Urchins but they eat coralline.

Conchs for the sand. I have a bunch.

CWalters · May 23, 2023

doubleshot00 said:
Big astrea's are awesome; small ones not so much.
Turbos are my go to for rocks.
Then Urchins but they eat coralline.

Conchs for the sand. I have a bunch.

My turbos don't seem to last long. Even with me finding them and flipping them back over. A few weeks max.

Doogs · May 23, 2023

WestMI-Reefer said:
Favorite: Trochus snails. Hard working, stay in the tank, can flip themselves, capable of reproducing in aquarium, look cool.

worst: Hermit crabs. They are cool to look at, but if you look long enough you will spot them doing something menacing and destructive. Constantly walking on corals, ripping food out of a coral mouth, making a mess of frags. And they are savage killers! They take out snails and each other. I once witnessed one attack and kill another hermit and not even take the shell. As though it was killing for pleasure lol. I have relegated most of them to the sump.

Someone sold me a few "reds," they got to the size of a half dollar and became a murder crabs. Had to replenish my entire CUC (100 dollars later) and send murder crabs packing to the LFS where they went to the "naughty corner" of the store.

Lbrdsoxfan · May 23, 2023

CWalters said:
My turbos don't seem to last long. Even with me finding them and flipping them back over. A few weeks max.

Hard to find an good batch. LFS suggested south american ones recently for restock, I bought 5 (as they are 5x for 20 or 6.99 each). They all lived, so far, lol. Also arent supposed to get golfball sized like the old school mexican ones I have.

doubleshot00 · May 23, 2023

CWalters said:
My turbos don't seem to last long. Even with me finding them and flipping them back over. A few weeks max.

They prefer hotter water. I had my last 3-4 for over a year. Current one is almost as big as my palm and going on 4-5 months.

AydenLincoln · May 23, 2023

My urchin is the best! My snails and hermit crabs are not as strong/as many numbers as they used to be I need to replenish the stock lol! And the wrasse in the school tank has been feasting on them so no they aren’t doing their job in that tank.

Lbrdsoxfan · May 23, 2023

Doogs said:
Someone sold me a few "reds," they got to the size of a half dollar and became a murder crabs. Had to replenish my entire CUC (100 dollars later) and send murder crabs packing to the LFS where they went to the "naughty corner" of the store.

I've inadvertently mixed red & blues before. It quickly becomes the killing fields.

Budman93 · May 23, 2023

My hermits are easily the worst. its not that they are killing anything or being a nuisance, it's that I literally never see them during the day and to my knowledge they arent 'cleaning' anything. Maybe waste overnight but I have nassarius snails for that. Waste of money imo.

AydenLincoln · May 23, 2023

Budman93 said:
My hermits are easily the worst. its not that they are killing anything or being a nuisance, it's that I literally never see them during the day and to my knowledge they arent 'cleaning' anything. Maybe waste overnight but I have nassarius snails for that. Waste of money imo.

I see them running towards the fish food haha!

Lbrdsoxfan · May 23, 2023

Budman93 said:
My hermits are easily the worst. its not that they are killing anything or being a nuisance, it's that I literally never see them during the day and to my knowledge they arent 'cleaning' anything. Maybe waste overnight but I have nassarius snails for that. Waste of money imo.

Good for detritus on rockscape if you have a lot of it.

Doogs · May 23, 2023

Lbrdsoxfan said:
I've inadvertently mixed red & blues before. It quickly becomes the killing fields.

My tank was all reds. These two were tiny, about the same size as reds, but grew big and killed mexican turbo snails for their shell. Had to rescue a few snails from being gang murdered one too many times.

woodyarmadillo · May 23, 2023

My hermits (blue legs) were actively killing my snails even though I read they weren’t supposed to and they had 20+ shells of various sizes in the tank. I have Nessarius snails, dwarf Trochus, Trochus, Cerith etc but they didn’t seem to be doing a great job at algae control.

I added a few ox tongues from ReefCleaners based on a recommendation and man do they clean. I watched them go rock by rock and get every speck of algae off. They’d work on a rock for 2 days straight and get it clean clean and then move on.

the other important one for me is the Mexican turbo. As advertised, it plows through hair algae and eliminated my hair algae problem almost overnight.

So my 2 must haves are ox tongues and Turbos.

vetteguy53081 · May 23, 2023

Not woodyarmadillo said:
My hermits (blue legs) were actively killing my snails even though I read they weren’t supposed to and they had 20+ shells of various sizes in the tank. I have Nessarius snails, dwarf Trochus, Trochus, Cerith etc but they didn’t seem to be doing a great job at algae control.

I added a few ox tongues from ReefCleaners based on a recommendation and man do they clean. I watched them go rock by rock and get every speck of algae off. They’d work on a rock for 2 days straight and get it clean clean and then move on.

the other important one for me is the Mexican turbo. As advertised, it plows through hair algae and eliminated my hair algae problem almost overnight.

So my 2 must haves are ox tongues and Turbos.

Mexican turbos are excellent with GHA but quickly mow it down and starve.

Stephen8169301 · May 23, 2023

Pincushion urchin: does a great job but recks havoc im my tank constantly cleaning up after him

emerald crab: I see him constantly scraping rocks and see scratches everywhere from him

blue legged hermits: love these guys need more (not enough shells killed each other)they do a lot of algae eating especially if something has algae added to tank the next day it’s gone

trochus snail: always on my rocks going to work

nassarius snails: always in the sand barley see them

astrea snail: always grazing back glass and leaving bunch of baby snails all over tank