snail me a crab, will you?

[penguin87]

i brought you all here today to discuss a situation that needs confirmation. i want to make sure that it is ok to mix different species of snails and crabs in a nano reef. see, instead of having a bunch of one species of snail and hermits, i want to have 1 blue leg, 1 red leg, 1 zebra, and then 1 astrea snail, 1 margarita, and 1 nassarius snail. i'm assuming this will all work, but with nano-reefing, something that sounds like a great idea can always turn into a great disaster.

hey! that sounded cool.

 

also, i would like to know if a minibow 7 will accomadate an ocellaris clown, and a yellow clown goby. i will, of course add them very slowly.

[offsprg01]

snails and crabs are cool. one fish imho. goby will probably be the better choice.

[WhiteRat]

One species of snail and crab? What a freaky idea!

 

I'm not kidding. I'd always been led to believe that the more diverse an ecosystem was, the more stable it was, and a reef tank of any size lives and dies by this. That's one reason why nanos are portrayed by big reefers as being inherently difficult to maintain.

 

Take a look at nearly any online reef mail-order store and you will see that they advertise algae-eater teams containing diverse species, so that what one species won't eat, others will. A primo example of this is mithrax/emerald crabs which will eat bubble algae, and conchs which will eat hair algae as well as cleaning your sandbed (but they'll also outgrow your nano in a year or two and turn into hardcore bulldozers!).

 

The one warning I would give is this: All crabs eat snails. All crabs eat snails. All crabs eat snails. No snails eat crabs to the best of my awareness.

 

I run a 30g semi-nano based off of Tampa Bay Saltwater's Package Deal. As a result, coming into my first month of ownership I was overrun with crabs (this is my only problem with TBSW's package deal, btw) which ate all of my snails. Since then I have gradually phased in new species of crabs and snails while reducing the overral crab population. I have some Hawaiian hermits, a metric nano-ton of blue-legs, a handful of red-legs, two hitchhiking brown mithrax and two emerald crabs. The only ones I've never seen working over a flipped snail are the red-legs. All but the mithrax/emeralds polish the sandbed, the red-legs eat cyano-slime, though that hasn't been troublesome in a long while, the Hawaiians and blue-legs generally scavenge, and the mithrax and emeralds eat hair algae and bubble algae, though again I haven't seen any in some time.

 

My snail populace includes three species of nerites, strombus, nassarius, bumblebees, a hitchhiker keyhole limpet, and one fighting conch who patrols my sandbed.

 

The only problem is the one mantis shrimp who over the years has outwitted everything I've tried and is dug in really deep in my biggest, most populated hunk of LR at the base of my reef. Because of him, about every three months I have to pitch in a dozen or so new snails.

 

Based on my experience with crab overload, I now maintain a ratio of about 3-1 snails to hermits, and I occasionally remove a blue-leg who has gotten really big and snail-hungry.

 

So to the best of my knowledge it is not only 'okay' but highly desireable to add a diverse group of crabs and snails. I would 2-1 the snails over the crabs, though, by perhaps adding a nerite and a strombus to your snail-mix.

 

The biggest issue with your ocellaris that I've heard is that IF they decide to accept a coral host rather than an anemone, they can be rough on your corals. You don't mention what kind of corals you've got. If you were planning on adding an anemone, please read everything that the search here turns up about'em, and make sure you're ready for that sort of commitment and life-support.

 

I have also heard that if you've got clowns in a small tank, adding them first is a good thing if the other fish will be territorial. I don't know how territorial a yellow clown goby is, no experience on my part. (No ocellaris experience either, but plenty of false percula.)

 

I will, of course add them very slowly.

 

ROFL. About one stripe/day should work out...Make sure to hang them head-down in the tank so they can breathe. Don't add them tail-first...

 

Hope this helps. The 'search' button here is your friend in a big way. You'll be able to dig up a lot more using it.

 

Ratty

Ratty's Reef

[Raise]

lol, i like the title of this thread.

[westkyracer]

Don't add the fish too slow!!!

They dry out really fast LOL.

 

I have several different snails most hitch hiked on the LR. Don't be scared, have fun.

[penguin87]

nobody loves chris allen. what i MEANT to say was that i would add the clown first, and then several months later i would add the goby. thanks for finding humor in my mistake though! i love makin' people laugh