Is there anything cuc's won't eat?

[glb]

I have a 12g nano that crashed and now I'm rebuilding it. I had a bad cyano and red hairy algae outbreak that I treated with chemiclean then a rock scrub and lights out. Parameters are all great now but rocks are dirty. I bought 6 turbo snails and 6 hermit crabs today and acclimated them. They don't seem to be eating the detritus. Can anyone explain this?

 

[glb]

I'm wondering if I need emerald crabs. I know they're aggressive but they seem to eat everything. My rocks used to be spotless.

 

[NanaReefer]

What do you mean by dirty? Did you take the rock out when you scrubbed it?
Take the Turbo's back, please! They will surely die of starvation, unless you supplement Dried Seaweed. They do not eat detritus, but are strictly herbivores.
IMO 6 Hermits in a 12g is 5 Hermits to many. These animals spend many many hours foraging for food stuff. 6 could easily clean out a 12g in a matter of weeks. Again you'll find yourself needing to supplement food for them to survive. Which makes having a CUC pointless.

 

[glb]

I don't know what the stuff on the rocks is. I scrubbed the rocks in the tank water and then took them out for about 20 minutes while I cleaned the sand. Then I put them back and did a 90% water change. I left the lights off for a week, then added the cuc's. With the snails, I've had turbo's that have survived for years, mainly by handing out on the glass. Same with the hermits. They're very tiny now. I'll donate some of them in the future if they outgrow the tank. Let me try to get a pic of the rocks.

 

[glb]

Here's an example. It's the stuff sticking out off the right of the rock in the middle of the pic. It's sort of fuzzy but continues to grow. The color is greenish so it seems to be algae but none of the cuc's will eat it. Before I scrubbed the rocks I had a bunch of the same thing only it was red.

 

[glb]

Do you think one emerald crab might be better. They seem to eat anything.

 

[haleyf1024]

My emerald only eats meat, bubble, and hair algae. Try to identify what type of algae you have first and then go from there, researching the natural predators of it.

 

[glb]

Thanks. In the past, my rocks were always picked clean so I'm not sure what's different. It probably is hair algae so I think I'll get an emerald.

 

[glb]

Here's another tuft of it I just blew out with a turkey baster. In white light it's green. So I guess my other algae may have been green too but looked red because of the LED's.