Clean Up Crew for 14g biocube

[NewbietoNanos]

Hey there!

 

I have a 14g biocube that's been running for a little over a month. I'm having some green hair algea issues and am going to start weekly water changes to hopefully help. I have 2 blue-legged hermit crabs, 1 astrea snail, and a cleaner shrimp. I am needing some advice on what a good clean up crew for this size tank would be. I think a couple more snails would be good, but am open to any suggestions. I don't think I want any more crabs because I'm afraid they will take over. I originally brought home 2 astreas and 10 min after I put them in the tank my bigger crab got to one and took over it's shell! Grrrrrrrr.

 

Thanks

[Sal10104]

first of all if your hermit is killing snails for shells, i would look into buying some shells for him second the best treatment for green hair algae is peroxide, if that isn't an option look into getting some phosgaurd and a media bag, weekly water changes will help, try to feed less! there is 1 thing and 1 thing only that causes green hair algae and its phosphates remove the phosphates the algae will go i would say some phosgaurd would do you really well make sure you have ample surface agitation that will help also

[NewbietoNanos]

Thanks. Should I add to my CUC?

[Sal10104]

if you want to you can add a couple more snails and a small star and whatnot but its not that big of a deal, i mean for my 95 my CUC is

55 assorted hermit crabs

4 or 5 i can't remember mexican turbo snails

1 cleaner shrimp (don't know if you wanna call it CUC but it cleans up old food sometimes)

1 longspine urchin

you see i don't attack algae very hard but i have some of them eating it point is that algae isn't cured by fish/CUC that eat it its cured by removing what is causing the algae in the first place

[mo'smyname]

They are fun to watch, but I'd stay away from hermit crabs all together... in my experience they don't solve more issues than they create.

 

Mexican turbos are bulldozers with unsecure frags and rocks, and when they die it is a mess unless you have enough scavengers to take care of them. With that said, they do put a whoopin on algae. I'd get trochus snails over these monsters unless I was battling a specific type of algae.

 

A few tonga nassarious snails are awesome to clean up extra food and livestock deaths, and to stir the sand around. I've never had any luck keeping the small regular nassarious alive for very long.

 

A florida fighting conch would do an excellent job keeping areas they can reach clean with the exception of bubble algae.

 

Nano conchs (columbellid sp) make up the bulk of my crew.

[Hammerstone]

Cowrie, eats algae all day long ?

[Stephosaurus]

They are fun to watch, but I'd stay away from hermit crabs all together... in my experience they don't solve more issues than they create.

 

Mexican turbos are bulldozers with unsecure frags and rocks, and when they die it is a mess unless you have enough scavengers to take care of them. With that said, they do put a whoopin on algae. I'd get trochus snails over these monsters unless I was battling a specific type of algae.

 

A few tonga nassarious snails are awesome to clean up extra food and livestock deaths, and to stir the sand around. I've never had any luck keeping the small regular nassarious alive for very long.

 

A florida fighting conch would do an excellent job keeping areas they can reach clean with the exception of bubble algae.

 

Nano conchs (columbellid sp) make up the bulk of my crew.

 

Yeah I 2nd adding the trochus snails, I have 5 in my 36 and they get most of the work done themselves. Ceriths wouldn't be a bad idea either.

 

I have several scarlet hermit crabs. My LFS said they were far less agressive than the blue legged, and I haven't had any problems so far...they really just keep to themselves.

[mo'smyname]

Killing each other, was one thing, but when I watched a hermit kill a snail, proceed to eat some of the snail, and then try on it's shell, only to go back to the original shell he had on in the first place, I got a little miffed.

 

The first time I saw a hermit open up an expensive (to me) palythoa to get at the food it just enveloped, the crab almost hit the trashcan on its way to the sump.

[NewbietoNanos]

I am done with the hermits! I got 2 more astreas and a small turbo-so 4 snails in all. Think that will be enough? Hopefully will get the algea under control with the weekly water changes.

 

thanks everyone

[Stephosaurus]

If you have the lights on I would recommend shutting those off too, or have them on less throughout the day, that will help. Give them a week or two, see how much they clean up, add more as needed. Once you get through that first big algae bloom, it shouldn't get that out of control again, so it's better to start small then get more if necessary.