Buying a cleanup crew.

[Noober]

:thumbs_up:Ok I am going to buy a basic cleanup crew. The main things I see in my tank are black hair alage, its this blackish hairy stuff, so I assume this is what it is. Then I've got Bubble alage, Im going to get some emerald crabs with my cleanup crew to try to fight these off. What all do you guys reccomend for a full cleanup crew that would keep my tank stable? Are there cleanup fish and snails/crabs that once they take care of the problem they were put in the tank for, that would starve after their food source ran out, so can this be balenced by just buying only one or two emrald crabs for my fifty gallon? Anyway any advice is much appricated, thank you all!:applause:

[Noober]

Here are some pics, the bubble alge, the blackish hairs, then I have added some wierd stuff I see at night usually, but caught it out in the day earlier, and some stuff on the rock that I am curious about, I see greenish and oranges sponge looking things, I wish I could find one at the moment but apparently I hid them when I rearranged my rocks. I can try to get some pics up as soon as I find them.
bubble alage
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/Aquarium/102_0899.jpg
black hairs, hard to see in blurry pic
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/Aquarium/102_0897.jpg
white round dots, are they worms? and benificial, if they are what I think they are they are supposed to be benifical but I havnt seen anything coming out of them.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/Aquarium/102_0902.jpg
Here the unknown flowerly looking things, they can retract, and they look like wildflowers, sort of.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/Aquarium/102_0904.jpg
More life growing on the rocks.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h254/mpthreer/Aquarium/102_0900.jpg

Please help me Identify these and cure any problems with a good cleanup crew! Thx again.

[Captain Jack]

it looks like you've already got some snails. I would recommend expanding your cleanup crew gradually, so that you avoid overstocking and starving them (like you mentioned when the food source runs out). more than once I've bought a bundle of 3 or 4 algea eating snails at once (to get a group discount) for my 30 gallon, and had them dieing off after a couple weeks after they cleaned off the rocks (i don't have super lights, so no super algea growth).

Off the top of my head, some good food/detris scavengers are your nassarius snails, brittle/serpent stars. Algea eaters are turbo, astrea, nerite snails, hermit and emerald crabs. Lots of other options as well. I recommend getting a small number of several types, instead of a large number of only 1 type; because each can have different types of algea they prefer.

The white things are probably small feather dusters, which are fine. They can free swim for a bit when young, then pant on a surface not to move again. the sponges usually require low light to thrive, so over time if you don't mess with the live rock, they'll probably show up in the shaded spots.

anyway, that's my 2 cents.

[pagan.n.damaged]

You can always email Reef Cleaners who are also a Maast sponsor and they can give you a good guide for your tank. Thats who I'm buying the clean up crews for my 60 and 135 though. As soon as this horrible move is over.