fire shrimp, nassarius snails, and ... ?

[beefjerky402]

ok my 10g aga has finely cycled, now im looking into a cleaning crew. im looking at getting 1 fire shrimp just for its looks and a couple nassarius snails to stir up my sand. im wondernig how many nassarius snails i should get for a 10g tank and what other inverts i should get to keep my tank clean. right now i got some brown algea on my class and on my sand that i would like to get rid of. so i was thinking:

 

1 x fire shrimp

? x nassarius snails

? x scarlet crabs ( or maybe blue legged? heard they are mean though )

and

? x suggestions and why

[MrConclusion]

Scarlet crabs are better at eating hair algae for sure. I use a mix of blue and scarlet. How many depends on how much food there will be for them. In my 10 gallon w/ firefish, I must feed every day and the fish miss a lof of the finely chopped food. I have about 20 crabs in there, and an emerald mithrax who has absolutely destroyed all bubble algae.

 

I don't think that hermits are very destructive unless they get hungry. Many people feed much less than me, but I do more water changes, and have more LPS/SPS growth too. I have hindreds of hermits and never a problem.

 

A half dozen nass snails should be fine.

 

Other (turbo, astrea, etc.) snails depends on your lighting. The more lighting and the higher the bioload, the more algae grows on the glass and the substrate. I would say at least 4 if they are decent siza, and add more if you see a need.

[Korbin]

As a reference -

 

I feed my 15 gallon (actually a 25 gallon system) about 1 or 2 flakes every few days. And my peppermint shrimp gets 99% of it. For cleanup I have:

2 nass snails

2 red leg hermits

1 blue leg hermit

15 ceriths

3 banded trochus

1 trochus

1 turbo

 

and my tank stays nice and clean. I dont feed my hermits, and I've seen the blue leg murder a cerith. Red legs are completely docile so far.

 

If you will have fish and plan to feed your tank more, you may want to up the # of snails accordingly. (oh, I have 150 watts of light too) I'll tell you though - if I didn't suppliment my turbos diet with nori, I think he would starve. A healthy turbo is an eating machine with a bottomless pit stomach.

[Andallya]

BeffJerky402, I live in the seattle area and one of the LFS sells a clean up crew @20 for $20. We have a 20long and two 10s and keep close to 20 in each tank. We've found the red leg hermits much kinder than the blue, only have one scarlett because they seem to get a little large for nano. We get a fair number of Astrea's, they seem to due a pretty good job, the Cirrus(SP?) are completely stupid and kill themselves almost immediately (astreas aren't too bright either, lol). We have a few Nassarious snails too. We do feen DTs and frozen shrimp at least every other day to keep everything looking good and happy. We love our fire shrimp by the way nor have we had any problems with our peppermint turning serial killer on us. We've done well with emeralds eating bubble algae, but it is possible that one has turned into a killing machine in our 20g. Something has been killing snails for a few months now, can't get a good look at the murderous little crab. Hope this helps. Good luck.