Cleanup crews

[FSU]

Does anyone use JUST snails for their cleanup crew with no blue legs or any other hermits? If anyone does, how does that work out for you?

[Mike]

We use just snails on the 210g and 20g and do not mix hermits and snails. Once you have seen a hermit rip a snail out of his shell and try it on for size and then decide it doesn't like it and go back to his old shell...

[FSU]

they are pretty adequate without the hermits Mike? Thinking of trying this, but wanted some opinions first

[350gt]

I yanked all my hermits out and I've been fine..

[Europhyllia]

It might just depend on your set up!

I've tried hermit-less in the seahorse tank and it just didn't work. I even tried chitons! For the type of algae and specifically the location of the algae the only thing that worked for me were Mexican Redleg hermits. They can climb the mangrove roots and love to eat my hair algae ( even when it's kind of long-ish and snails no longer touch it and more so than blue legs actually).

I could see being able to go without hermits in my reef tank now though

[allan]

I'm crabless, sort of. There is one red leg in there.

I'm under snailed now, but plan on running just the snails.

[LuckySingh]

its really a hit and miss....none of my invert that i hve kept over the years hve consumed any of the hair algae....
right now i hve nasarious and blue leged hermit combo..they r really gud in consuming the left over food but dnt know for algae...atleast not for me

[Europhyllia]

that's because both nassarius as well as blue legs aren't hair algae eaters. Blue legs may nibble on cyano which might be nice. But I wouldn't get them for hair algae. And Nassarius are definitely for meaty leftovers - not algae.

[FSU]

Yeah I wanted to get a bunch of cerithe snails....but we all know what happens with 150 blue leg hermits in the same tank as them lol. I did and continue to put in empty shells for the blue legs. Maybe that will help?

[LuckySingh]

whats the best for hair alage??