da CleanUP crew vs. the photosynthetic thugz

[aggiereefer]

I need ya'll's opinion on what would make the best clean up crew for my tank.

 

I plan on keeping primarily soft corals (mushrooms,gsp's, zoo's, xenia,etc) and possibly one clown.

 

Would I want to go with all hermits, all snails, or a combination of both? What has worked out best? I don't want turbo's, they seem to be alot of trouble with knocking stuff over. As of right now, I have some bubble and hair algae, my di-"atomic" explosion went away.

 

Does anyone have experience with sri lanka shrimp (all red body with a few white dots)? They seem to exhibit personality while observing them at the LFS and I'd like to keep one.

[mattie]

i have made adjustment to my clean up crew and have it just about were i want it

I have plenty of astrea snails they clean the lr perfectly and i have several scarlet hermits. they don't do any damage even the big ones and they take there time cleaing the sand and 2 mex red legs which run alot falling down i'm not sure what they do and a few zebra hermits in the fuge cause they where killing snails and other hermits in tank

as for the shrimp i assume its a fire shrimp (i haven't heard the sri lanka name as to a shrimp before) there fine they eat like pigs and are sensitive to water quality so they do better in an established tank of like 3 months+

[onthefly]

I'd second mattie's recommendation of asterias and scarletts/mex red legs. The "all snail" crowd will probably chime in later, but I like to have a few crabs....funny as hell to watch sometimes.

 

Also, I'd add some nassarius and/or cerith snails for the sandbed.

 

HTH

[mattie]

yea i think a nass or certh snail or 2 or 3 will probably finish off my clean up crew

[caja]

Toss in a couple margarita and nerite snails as well, good algae munchers.