When to add a clean up crew?

[SteelRain]

My tank has been up for about 2 weeks and according to my tests, is completely cycled. I have added a clown fish pair and they are doing great! I was wondering when to start adding a cleaner crew and which ones I should pick. I have no algae as of yet. I have a 40g NUVO tank and am dosing calcium and alkalinity daily. Any tips of a time frame would be great!

 

[SPR1968]

You will be fine to add them whenever they have something to eat or they will starve

I like hermit crabs and urchins personally for effective cleaning (I wouldn’t add urchins just yet though) but maybe go for some hermits and snails to start off or whatever you like

Also remember only dose what you need to after testing the water parameters, you probably won’t need anything at the moment in a new tank and you may well find simple water changes take care of this alone.

And welcome to R2R as well!

 

[TheWB]

Hi SteelRain. You should add your cleaners once there is something for them to do in the tank. Basically, when algae starts to show. Reefcleaners.org is a great place to get your clean up crew. I would start small, my tank is 50 gallons but I bought the crew for a 2.5 gallon tank to get my crew started. You can always add more and you don’t want them to starve. I’m curious why you are dosing calcium and alkalinity every day, do you already have corals in the tank that are using more than what a water change would replace?

 

[SteelRain]

Hi SteelRain. You should add your cleaners once there is something for them to do in the tank. Basically, when algae starts to show. Reefcleaners.org is a great place to get your clean up crew. I would start small, my tank is 50 gallons but I bought the crew for a 2.5 gallon tank to get my crew started. You can always add more and you don’t want them to starve. I’m curious why you are dosing calcium and alkalinity every day, do you already have corals in the tank that are using more than what a water change would replace?

I currently have a few zoa frags and some hammerheads. My alkalinity was dropping down to the low sevens repeatedly so I started dosing alk daily and now it stays between 8.8 and 9.3. I started dosing calcium as I was around the high 300s and wanted to push closer to the 425 range. Since I started dosing, my parameters have been very steady!

 

[TheWB]

I currently have a few zoa frags and some hammerheads. My alkalinity was dropping down to the low sevens repeatedly so I started dosing alk daily and now it stays between 8.8 and 9.3. I started dosing calcium as I was around the high 300s and wanted to push closer to the 425 range. Since I started dosing, my parameters have been very steady!

Interesting, what salt mix are you using? You may want to consider moving to a salt that more closely mixes to your target parameters rather than having to dose at this point. You don’t have corals that are using up a lot of Cal or Alk. I’m certainly no chemistry expert by any means but I would think using a different salt with higher parameters, if that’s what you want, would be easier to deal with than having to dose every day. Are you dosing manually or do you have dosing pumps?