I am not usually active with my clean-up crew. My last tank was setup for over 20 years, so keeping track of snail and crabs and such is not a high priority.
When we setup the new 750g in September we started with 1/2 fully mature live rock and 1/2 acid bathed dry rock. Almost 1000 lbs total.
After a month the beautiful new 750g tank had the ugly browns growing on the bottom (bare Bottom) of the tank and on some of the acid bathed rock.
I'm not a fan of hermits, I think usually they become food for my wrasses. And yet without buying them but every 5 years or so, whenever I clean a sump, or a frag tank I come across a few that are still alive and well.
We also have (2) 180g frag tanks outdoor in the sunlight.
To slow the ugly algae for the 750 we bought 100 turbos, 150 Astrea , 100 Cerith and 3 Sally Lightfoot crabs.
We dumped all the snails in a pile in one corner of the tank. And it was really neat to see how over the next 5 days they spread from that single pile and as they spread the bottom of the tank turned crystal clear.
Now 6 months later the bottom of the tank is clear of algae but the coraline has taken a strong hold.
With 3 viewable panels (2) 4x2.5 and (1) 10x2.5' There is alot of viewable acrylic. Sometimes there are as many as 50 snails on the glass. But they don't do enough to keep the glass clean.
Now that spring is here the algae in the outdoor frag tanks has gone off the rail. The frag tanks each have about 50 snails, and one tank has a 15" sea cucumber. But 3 different types of algae are flourishing. And when I say flourishing I mean chaeto morph in 1 week goes from smaller than a football to enough to fill a kitchen trash can bag. Week after week.
With the Chaeto overgrowing the tank so quickly it's allowing a hair algae to grow on the frag racks and the bottom of the tank which normally the tangs keep under control.
Last Thursday we added 100 turbos, 50 Astera, 4 urchins and 4 very small blue dot sea hares to the two frag tanks.
But I think we have to look beyond snails and crabs for a clean up crew. Tangs, Rabbitfish, Fox Face are all doing constant work at 'cleaning' up our tanks.
Our 1500g system is made up of 750g display, (2) 180g Frags tanks, 140g skimmer tank and 270g sump. They are all connected to the same sump, and a single pump. So the water is the same throughout. The display tank is lit by (12) Radion G6 Pros and sunlight on the right end. The frag tanks are lit by direct sunlight from sunrise to sunset. The skimmer tank gets sunlight through a sunshade and the sump gets indirect filtered sunlight.
Each tank obviously has different livestock and a different assortment of clean up crew. The skimmer tank is over run with aptasia and bubble algae. It only has clown fish in it.
The sump tank is clear of any nuisance algae other than coraline and what grows on the viewing panel after a month - It has Molly's, Tangs, Clowns, Copper Band and a Magnificent fox face.
The Frag tanks - Well we know about the chaeto and hair algae - currently - But for years have been algae problem free with a massive number of Molly's and tangs. And yet on the underside of some of the large pcs of coral there is bubble algae growing.
The display tank - It had 2 aptasia which I nuked by hand just last night. Has some bubble algae buried deep within some colonies. But has not problem algae - Snails, Sally Lightfoot and 15 tangs.
A clean up crew is to take care of things that can become problematic - Our first thought is to algae. But what about Aptasia, Majano, Flat Worms.
In our 750g we have the 15 tangs and 100's of snails and sally lightfoots for algae, for planaria we have yellow coris, melanarus, Leopard Wrasse, Mandarins, and Springeri Damsels --- None of which seem to want to clean up the planaria.
For AEFW we have Springeri Damsels and Dragon Faced Pipefish - But they don't really do their jobs either.
But we have to think about the tangs, Rabbit fish, Copperband butterflies, Martensi Butterfly, specific damsels and wrasses that are all important to having a robust clean up crew to clean up after all the different nuisance items in our reef systems.
Dave B
I also have 3 fairly large turbos and 2 tuxedo urchins that I move back and forth between tanks and sumps as needed to keep them fed. I tried sea hares but they didn't survive long even with algae present.
