What's an ideal cleanup crew for a 14 gallon cube?
What's an ideal cleanup crew for a 14 gallon cube?
I've always thought that blue legs ate hair algae. They always seemed to have in my tanks. I've only had a really big hair algae problem on one rock. I threw in more hermits and they seemed to have gotten rid of it. I know tangs will pick at it as will lawnmower blennies too.
Rick
Plain red leg hermits for algae if you want crabs. In my opinion the best snails for algae are astrea and small turbos. Cerith and nerites work well around the glass.
John
"Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place and then come down and shoot the survivors." Ernest Hemingway
Lucky, I think once the stuff is longer, hermits is the way to go but I definitely find the red legs to be more dedicated at the job than the blue legs (I have both in the 215g and only red legs in the 60g).
Monica it really depends on what you are trying to get rid of. Reefcleaners has a nice link on what their critters eat
Karin
I've never known....and still don't, the differences with the different hermits. I've just thought blue legs were always the way to go. Mind elaborating Karin, John, or someone else in the know?
Rick
my 6 huge turbos do the job for me in the 110, plus the tangs.... But the turbos push everything off the rocks when they are not glued down...
ReeF mafiA
Big turbos can do some serious rearranging.
I say red legs from previous experience after they were recommended by Karin.
John
"Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place and then come down and shoot the survivors." Ernest Hemingway
My tank is mainly ceriths. I swear by them except when the hair algae gets too long which is what Im facing now. :( I have two blue legs that have made it over from previous tanks that do a decent job but 2 isnt enough in my tank. Ill be getting some more hermits soon... Once the hair algae is gone though Ill be pulling the hermits back out too.
Kevin- 375 Gallon Reef
Reefing made easy...
Okay I guess I am on the wild side I like Scarlets and Hawaiians, and I do have the others in my 300 but if you can find Hawaiian and Scarlets you are good to go(both in my my 29). If you add 10 scarlets, a year from now you will still have 10. In my 40 I only have snails and they have done an okay job. The big thing is running GFO to keep phosphates down, I had to learn the hard way on my 300.
elaborate:
I settled on the red legs based on info I read on the Garf site (my problem was green hair algae-they have different suggestions for different problems):
http://www.garf.org/greenalgae.html
They said: "This small crab is the best algae eating hermit crab we have tested. Clibanarius digueti feeds on algae that grows on the rocky substrate and mangrove roots. " and that's pretty much what I was looking for so I settled on these and they worked well.
So often you buy stuff, drop it in and it does absolutely NOTHING. I was thrilled when these went to work right away.That's all. They are probably the least pretty of all the hermits (the legs aren't all that red) but they do the job I bought them for.
I don't count my snails. I am guessing they would eat snails and sorry if this sounds cold but -meh- stuff happens...
Karin