Small nano-reef clean up reccomendations

[DustinWayman]

Hey everyone, I am looking to get some small clean up critters for my 18g tall nano. WHat do you all reccomend hermit wise? how many? Also, what wold you all pick for snails? I am looking for a smaller snail that wont plow over everything in the tank. Everyone reccomends different things, and I would like to get something that is worth while for this cute little tank.

Thanks!
~Dustin Wayman

[longhorn_20m]

Ditto, except I have a 7 gallon tank.

I think I'm going to get 3-5 snails and 1-2 hermits, might also get a cleaner shrimp, but not sure.

[Nano_Steve]

hey dustin, i have had a 10 gallon up and running for about 6 months now and i have experimented with all sorts of inverts in it. hermit wise blue legs do a great job of cleaning but are very aggressive, they have ganged up on my nassarus snails and killed 3 already. red legs are very mild mannered but are not such voracious eaters of algae, they definitely stand out with their amazing color though. if you are concerned about rock work i would stray from the larger common hermits that they sometimes sell that look like the ones you find at the beach.

snails i would definitely say get at least 10 or 15 nassarus(or lazzarus as i like to call them) since they are great sand sifters and are wonderful for your substrate all the way around. if you can try to get some stomatella snails(they are the same kind as astrea just without the shell) because 1)they dont have a big cumbersome snail shell to know stuff over with and 2)they are camouflaged most of the time in the tank so you wont see them and 3)they get at that algae like no ones business. astrea are nice but like i said sometimes the shell can knock delicate rock work over. DONT GET TURBOS!!! i had nothing but problems with turbos in my tank, the amount of algae they ate was severly overshadowed by how much destruction of rock work i had to deal with(and by destruction i mean i would come home every day and have to pick up at least two of my corals from the sand bed.) the same goes for mexican red foots(yeah they are a gorgeous specimen but do you really want to have to deal with the risk of putting your hands in the water so often??)

heres my verdict: i would get 10 to 15 nassarus snails, 6 blue legs, 6 red legs, as many stomatella as you can find off of others rockwork, a mithrax crab or maybe even 2 with 18 gals, and some sort of shrimp like you talked about especially if you plan on having fish.

for what it is worth thats my opinion.

happy reefing! steve

[DustinWayman]

Steve, wonderful advice. Your reply has helped me out so much. I am hopefully going to be getting everything within the next few weeks. Later on this evening or tomorrow I will be getting some new coral and as of a few days ago, I bought a cute, but mean as no ones business Damsel. Although not the nicest fish, he will be the only fish in the tank. One last question, where should I get these critters? I believe Tim might be getting in some next week, but not sure.

Thanks again!
~Dustin Wayman

[matt]

If you're planning on having a thriving sand bed, I'd leave out the hermits, and defintiely the shrimp. They're pretty good at eating ANYTHING they can catch, which in a small tank is almost everything. Instead, get an urchin, In my 10 gal, I have 2 urchins, a tuxedo and a diadema (long spined) They really do a good clean up job w/o killing micro fauna.

HTH
Matt

[Nano_Steve]

dustin,
matt makes a good point about the shrimp and hermits, they definitely would rather be fed than scavenge and they tend to eat up all the food before it is able to get into the substrate. however, i dont know much about tuxedo urchins but i have heard and seen that long spine urchins are the bull dowzers of the reefing hobby. if not properly trimmed on a regular basis their spines will certainly get out of hand and the mayhem these guys can lay to your rockwork far outweighs what even a turbo snail can do(or so ive heard, i have never kept one because folks have told me just what i got done posting here) dont get me wrong, they are a fabulous creature, but i dont think i would be able to handle one in my 10 gal.

as for the substrate thing, i was told an INCREDIBLE tip by one of my good reefing buddies. he said that your substrate is just as, if not more, important as your live rock(hes right) so he focused more attention to his sandbed than to his liverock since the rock pretty much does its thing without any help. what he would do(and after personally testing what i would recommend) is every couple of months or so he would go to an lfs and ask if they would give him a couple of dead fish he might have seen lying in a tank(they gave them away for free when i did it last[whos really gonna charge you for a dead fish???]) ;) anyways, he would take the dearly departed and halve them then stick them straight down into his sand bed about half way to 3/4 ofthe way down. also whenever a coral died on him he would take it, flip it upside down, and stick it as deep into the sand bed as it would go.

the main goal to doing this procedure is to increase bacteria growth and population in your substrate by providing a huge meal for weeks to the little guys below the sand. when you go to check for the fish in a couple of weeks(which i wouldnt recommend but if you did) there would be no trace. ive been doing this for about a month and a half now and it really increases your sand beds consistency and bacteria levels.

so since i do this i have no worries about my hermits and crabs getting to the food before my bristle worms do since i know they have a feast waiting for them where the crabs cant get to it.

and there you have my two cents. :D steve

[matt]

Wow;
Cutting a dead fish in half and sticking it your sand bed. That's one I never heard :grin: I imagine you get occasional comments, like, "Um, what a nice fish that is" from people looking at your tank

Matt

[DustinWayman]

wow. I had never thought about that, but it makes a lot of sence! Thanks again for all of your help! I just emailed Tim on what I need to order.

Thanks!
~Dustin Wayman

[Nano_Steve]

:-D ROFL!!! i totally didnt even catch that when i was writing it!!! i meant to say that you stick the fish into the sand bed half way the height of your sand bed. that would look pretty funny with a fish head sticking out of your substrate when guests come to visit. :-D

[DustinWayman]

haha, that did make a funny mental picture for me.............

Thanks again!
~Dust

[MikeP]

If you don't want to use dead fish a few pieces of raw fish or shrimp would work just as well.