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Cultivated Reef

Your CUC Size


jservedio

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I am curious what everyone's CUC looks like, and what size tank they have? Why did you chose the particular creatures and their quantities that are on your CUC?

 

Mine is rather light - I've got a big fist sized turbo, 3 margaritas, a nassarius, 2 ceriths, and a blue legged in a 20g. I've had lots of snails over the years, but have been build my CUC around longevity and size (to not get eaten). The nassarius and blue legged are both more than 6 years old, the turbo is more than 3, and the others are newer to replace those that got eaten by my wrasse.

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I've got a 10g that's about 4 months old. Currently, I've got 2 nassarius, 2 astraea, 2 cerith, and 1 blue leg. Some cool hitchhikers I've gotten are spaghetti worms and micro brittle stars (pretty sure an emerald crab killed all the brittles though).

 

The astraea usually stay on the rockwork and are pretty good with film and hair algae. I have had to flip one over once though, they can't right themselves in sand. The ceriths were the most recent additions to help combat algae in the sand bed, and they've been great. I think I did overdo it with the second nassarius. Mostly they just snooze in the sandbed during the day. I'm going to see if the LFS wants one. The blue leg was more for entertainment. He does pick around the rocks and sand though.

 

I don't really have any worries about the CUC getting attacked since the emerald crab died. The hermit has been well-behaved and has only changed shells out of the spares I had lying around.

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My 90g has 1 zebra, 1 astraea, 1 emerald, 3 peppermint and 1 conch. I'm a believer in a small CUC. That way they always have stuff to eat and wont die off. I had all these, minus the peppermints, in my 40b first then transfered over so its been over a year. 

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I’ve got quite a few in mine my 96l has 5 nassarius for sand bed,2 Astraea, always on the rocks, 3 bumblebees also in the rocks but in the small gaps ,1 turbo gets everywhere and a Hawaiian dwarf hermit also gets everywhere also a mural goby for the sand bed, I try to have things that keep it as mataniece free as possible 

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I'm curious...do the snails continue to grow grow grow...or does the size of tank affect how big they get?

 

it's also interesting how small some of the CUC seem to be compared to what others have in, say their pico jars.  :tongueout:

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12 minutes ago, Friendly said:

I'm curious...do the snails continue to grow grow grow...or does the size of tank affect how big they get?

 

Most snails only grow to a certain size. 

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7 minutes ago, Friendly said:

that's what I thought...but never heard of a turbo the size of a fist.  :haha:

Oh yeah, zebra turbos get like 6 inches across. Big bois. :lol:

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I can't remember because I've had to replace them from time to time.

 

25g - 2 conchs, a few nassaurius, a few ceriths, 1 spiny star astrea, 2 trochus, 4 - 5 hermits

 

10g- 2 nassaurius, 1 conch, 3 trochus, 1 spiny star, 3 hermits

 

5g- 2 nassaurius, 1 trochus, 3 hermits

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16 hours ago, jservedio said:

I choose my words carefully.

 

21 hours ago, shaner014 said:

E438A07F-9B07-4A40-AE56-76F526EAEB11.thumb.jpeg.e522e5e7631cd45d8fb9297fda84e829.jpeg

 

Am I the only one giggling at this every time?! :happy:

What did I say? 

  • Haha 1
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I stopped stocking heavy amount of CUC.  It's like flushing money down the strain.  If you have algae issue, fix the root cause instead of overloading your CUC.  Right now I have:

 

13g Fluval Evo - 1 scarlett red hermit, 1 trochus

90g Red Sea Reefer 350 - 1 conch, 3 nassarius, 4 trochus, 50+ DEAD snails / hermits

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A dwarf zebra and a mexican red-legged hermits, 'home-grown' micro collunista snails, limpets, micro-brittle stars, mysid shrimps and bristleworms in a well established 12g.

 

 

 

 

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Interesting topic and replies.....when you go to certain vendors websites, they sell "Packages" based on tank size...and wow, talk about over load!  In my 29g Biocube I have 6 varieties of snails, 4 blue leg hermits (Small), a brittle star, and a cleaner shrimp.  They do a pretty good job!

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My Biocube 32 has been up for around two months, here's what I have as CuC goes: Three scarlet hermits, two blue legged hermits, three trochus snails, two cerith snails, three nassarius snails, one turbo snail, one emerald crab, two peppermint shrimp, and one pink pincushion urchin.  

I think i'm pretty much maxed out, though i'll replace snails and hermits as they die, and I might get a conch if there are any that stay relatively small. 

Although I originally got the Peppermint shrimp to eat Aiptasia, now that it's all gone I do have to feed them, same with the urchin eating hair algae. 

 

 

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On 2/4/2019 at 12:47 PM, Friendly said:

I'm curious...do the snails continue to grow grow grow...or does the size of tank affect how big they get?

 

it's also interesting how small some of the CUC seem to be compared to what others have in, say their pico jars.  :tongueout:

Now I am curious, is there a specific species list that would be more suitable for picos, vases, etc. ?

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