Time to restock: How often do you refresh your clean-up crew?

[Peace River]

Time to restock: How often do you refresh your clean-up crew?

Tank maintenance is important whether it is the maintenance that you do, your equipment does, or your clean-up crew does for you. In the past we have talked about when to add a clean-up crew when you are setting up a tank, so let’s also talk about how often you refresh your clean-up crew (CUC)? Do you watch for what is happening in your tank that may suggest that you need to bolster your CUC, watch for how many of your existing CUC that you can see, or do you just add more on a specific interval (e.g., every six months, once a year, etc.)? Let us know your approach to replenishing your clean-up crew in the related discussion and share any CUC tips that you may have!

Photo by @lilopop11; Reef of the Month April 2023


This QOTD is sponsored by: www.dinkinsaquaticgardens.com

“Dinkins Aquatic Gardens specializes in producing top-quality copepods, phytoplankton, amphipods, and berghia nudibranchs. We are a small husband-and-wife company that intensely focuses on customer service. We'd love to have you experience the Dinkins Difference!"

 

[Ron Reefman]

I replace CUC when I see their numbers starting to go down. I don't jump on it right away, just in case I have too many and food is in short supply. About 90% of my CUC get collected in the wild when I go snorkeling in the Florida Keys or during beach walks (especially at full moon low tides).

 

[Doctorgori]

^^^same, especially when the empty turbo shells pile up…
and btw, ( just chatter) the longevity of some turbos is kinda short…I haven’t nailed down which species is which but apparently the so called checkered ones last a few years…
and those so called “Turban” snails: the ones with the top down spiral, last the longest

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

Clean up crew? Never heard of it lol




Whatever critters come in on the coral I buy. That's my CUC

 

[JayM]

"Other"

When I see more hermit crabs disguised as snails, I know it's time to add a few more snails. I'm not sure if they're murdering snails for their shells, or if they're moving in to vacant housing.

 

[Reefer Matt Verified Media Partner]

I get a couple hundred astrea snails every 2-3 months for four tanks.

 

[Oiseaufeu]

I have a 5 months old tank and it’s filled with algae. I removed some, but I can’t do the back of my tank, so I got some turbo snails and a trochus snail. I found some cuc when I cycled my tank like colonista snails, chitons, asterinas, copepods, bristleworms, amphipods and spaghetti worms.

 

[brandon429]

for those planning on restocking this year with a boosted clean up crew + no fallow or qt preps, we'd like to pre-welcome you and the entire fish bioload in your tank to the disease troubleshooting forum for a quick primer on how this was preemptively avoidable




yours, 2024

Biosecurity

A short introduction to aquarium biosecurity

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Cthulukelele]

I get a couple hundred astrea snails every 2-3 months for four tanks.

A couple hundred every 2-3 months?! How quickly do they thin out? In my 120 I probably lose a single snail every 3-4 months. Is that uncommon?

 

[shakacuz]

options 4&5!

 

[Reefer Matt Verified Media Partner]

A couple hundred every 2-3 months?! How quickly do they thin out? In my 120 I probably lose a single snail every 3-4 months. Is that uncommon?

They don’t all die out in that time. I keep a snail or two per gallon. A lot of people don’t get enough imo, and wonder why they have hair algae, etc.

 

[Cthulukelele]

They don’t all die out in that time. I keep a snail or two per gallon. A lot of people don’t get enough, imo and wonder why they have hair algae, etc.

But do astrea snails even eat hair algae? My understanding is they can't handle much more than film algae. I'm not questioning your methods as much as curious where they all go as after a few trips you'd have thousands.

 

[Reefer Matt Verified Media Partner]

But do astrea snails even eat hair algae? My understanding is they can't handle much more than film algae. I'm not questioning your methods as much as curious where they all go as after a few trips you'd have thousands.

Not the long stuff, but they prevent it from getting there. If someone has long hair algae, they will have to manually remove it first (or get a sea hare,etc), then add a bunch of snails.

 

[MnFish1]

Time to restock: How often do you refresh your clean-up crew?

Tank maintenance is important whether it is the maintenance that you do, your equipment does, or your clean-up crew does for you. In the past we have talked about when to add a clean-up crew when you are setting up a tank, so let’s also talk about how often you refresh your clean-up crew (CUC)? Do you watch for what is happening in your tank that may suggest that you need to bolster your CUC, watch for how many of your existing CUC that you can see, or do you just add more on a specific interval (e.g., every six months, once a year, etc.)? Let us know your approach to replenishing your clean-up crew in the related discussion and share any CUC tips that you may have!

Photo by @lilopop11; Reef of the Month April 2023


This QOTD is sponsored by: www.dinkinsaquaticgardens.com

“Dinkins Aquatic Gardens specializes in producing top-quality copepods, phytoplankton, amphipods, and berghia nudibranchs. We are a small husband-and-wife company that intensely focuses on customer service. We'd love to have you experience the Dinkins Difference!"

I replaced it 'as needed' - however my harlequin tusk within a week decided a CUC was not necessary, and 'cleaned them up'. Since then I didn't re-add, and didn't notice any changes in the tank. Seems possible/probably that a CUC may be more beneficial upon tank start up and perhaps less as time goes on (depending on what fish you have - that may be playing the same role as a CUC)

 

[kevgib67]

Just pasted the 2 year mark and recently replenished ny, turbos ( still have the original 2 just added 3 more), trocus snail’s, dwarf hermits and bumblebee snails.

 

[Cthulukelele]

Not the long stuff, but they prevent it from getting there. If someone has long hair algae, they will have to manually remove it first (or get a sea hare,etc), then add a bunch of snails.

That's definitely fair. I tend to understock CUC as I want them to have plenty to eat and get gigantic and if I have to do a little manual removal I do it (maybe every few months), but it's just different strategies.

 

[AKL1950]

Had to choose other. I originally started with 15 trochus and 10 Mexican turbo snails. Haven’t had to add more since. They reproduce and replenish themselves faster than they die. Just last week I got up and looked at the tank and there were about 20 new tiny trochus snails on the front glass. Between them and my tangs, tank stays clean. Also have one skunk shrimp (now close to 4” long) and one blue leg hermit who has upgraded shells about 20 times. The algae growth and the CUC seem to stay in balance very well. Nutrients stay about NO3 10-14 and PO4 about 0.1-0.12.

 

[AustinBabler]

"Other"

When I see more hermit crabs disguised as snails, I know it's time to add a few more snails. I'm not sure if they're murdering snails for their shells, or if they're moving in to vacant housing.

In my experience hermits kill for sport haha

 

[Paul B]

Why would you have to replace a CUC? Most of them live as long as fish or longer.

These hermit crabs died within a week of each other at about 10 years old.



This urchin just died, he was about 12



I don't know how long snails live because I lost their birth certificate but I haven't added any in years and I still see quite a few of them.

 

[Alexraptor]

As needed.

Interestingly, my 25G reef seems to have reached perfect equilibrium of CuC. For the past year and a half I've had a stable population of exactly 6 trochus snails and 5 money cowries, never had that kind of population stability in any other tank. *knock on wood*