10g Clean-up Crew?

[MacnReef]

I have a ten gallon nano that has been set-up for a little over a week now. All the sand and rock came from my 65g which had been up for a few years. At this time I have, 5 turbo snails. This weekend I plan on getting 5 more turbo snails, 4 hermit crabs, 1 peppermint or cleaner shrimp, a scotter blenny, and a yellow watchman goby. Will this be sufficient?

 

I will have two small percula clowns and various soft corals. I should have pics of my tank at its present state by tomorrow. Tell me what you think!

 

Later

[spoondigity]

You may want to read a little more reference material on stocking smaller tanks before you make your decision. You can do some searches here on this site and various others. This seems like several fish too many to me. I feel like I have maxed out the life in my 10 gallon with a single TR ocellaris clown, a cleaner shrimp, and a 3 inch gobie. You may get away with it for a limited time, but eventually you are going to have to move things out as they grow and pollute your water. Also, I have always heard that turbos get big and knock things over so you may not want them in the 10 gallon as they grow (no experience with these guys but I have read/heard this over and over). I keep a mix of around 8 smaller snails (astrea, bumble bee, margarita) in my 10, with 4 hermits and they seem to do a good job.

 

Let us know what you decide and keep us up to date with some pics!

[Crakeur]

turbo's in a nano=bad. I have one in my 7 gallon and this thing got huge. Almost golfball sized and it is a bulldozer. Knocks things all over the place. Go with other snails.

[MacnReef]

Alright, well that helped, I am glad I posted this thread. I have always had turbos, but always in larger tanks. I will see if my lfs have smaller snails. The reason I was going with sooo much was because I talked to a guy at my local fish store that has a 15g nano and he had some pics of it. It looked sweet! He said that he has like 3 gobies, 2 blennies, 15 turbos, different crabs I think like 10 total. He said that it works well for clean-up.

 

Well, in about 2 hrs I will call my lfs and look for the suggested snails. Also, what shrimp would be the best? I like to keep one snail per gallon, but what and how many of each of the snails you listed would be a good combination. Finally, should I get a watchman or scooter?

 

Thank you again.

[spoondigity]

Sounds like your research is coming along. I ran into the same things where I would ask several people and get different answers. Then you read several books and get slightly different points of view from them. I just go with general consensus if I get too many varied opinions on this stuff.

 

As for the shrimp, the cleaner is going to give you the advantage of cleaning your fish (mine works on my clown and gobie) so that supposedly helps with ich and other diseases. The cleaner will probably be larger than the peppermint though so you may consider that too. The peppermints are sometimes used to get rid of aptasia which are considered problem anemones so that is good. On the down side, I have heard people mention peppermints eating their polyps in some cases. Tough to say exactly how they will act.

 

I would probably go with the yellow watchman just because they are considered low maintenance and I have read that the scooter blenny is sometimes considered more of a high maintenance fish (I have never had one so maybe someone who has will chime in).

 

As for the number of clean up crew specifically. I think most people are fans of astrea snails for their size/work ratio. I have had great luck with my margarita snails as well so I keep a pretty even mix of these types if not slightly more astreas. The bumble bees are more just interesting little guys. They stay small, look neat, dissappear for weeks at a time and then show up unexpectedly. They can tend to seem lazy but they also like to burrow through the sand. I would keep these in low numbers since they won't have as much effect on algae control which is what you are probably wanting most.

 

P.S. You may be fine with a gobie and blenny, but it is always a good idea to start slow with nanos. Even with your water/rock coming from your established tank, you may at least consider how many fish inhabitants you feel are safe to add at one time (specially if you are also going to add the clowns in now). On the other side of that coin, you have to consider that sometimes adding a fish at a later time, to an already established and inhabited tank, will cause more fights in the tank. Adding things together can help to keep one fish from being more dominant and abusing new inhabitants... hopefully your LFS is a quality place and they can give you good advice on what they KNOW works.

[Crakeur]

Originally posted by MacnReef

He said that he has like 3 gobies, 2 blennies, 15 turbos, different crabs I think like 10 total.  He said that it works well for clean-up.

 

 

He must do a water change every 6 hours.

[MacnReef]

I just went to liveaquaria.com and looked at the snails to verify which snail I have. My snails have the cone shaped shell. I think my lfs has me calling them the wrong thing. When I went to that site I saw the turbo and they have a rounded-off shell that does not come to a point. Please tell me if I am correct.

 

I will probably go with a watchman and a small cleaner. Maybe one or two bb snails, the five astreas that I have and three or four margaritas.

 

Keep the good info coming, btw, this is my first nano!!!!

[spoondigity]

Sounds like you are probably right about the snails you have. The cone shell snails should be astreas.

[MacnReef]

http://www.aquariumarts.com/astraea.html

 

go to this site and you will see EXACTLY what I have!

 

Thanx

[spoondigity]

Those are the ones. You have astreas if they look like the link you sent. Thanks for that link. I happened to look at the margarita snail picture from that link and they are not what I have and what I had considered margarita snails. This is a poor picture, but these are what I have and what I have always considered margarita snails

 

http://www.marinedepotlive.com/1263914.html

 

I could be wrong though....

 

Either way, the ones that I call margaritas are the black/silver spiral shelled snails and they are excellent. Also, the actual snail itself is black.

[Twins Guy]

i have a 5 gallon hex reef, obviously a little smaller than a ten but i thought i would offer this up. until about two weeks ago i had a small scooter blenny in my reef. he really seemed to struggle to find forage in the tank. i get the impression that they will acclimate to frozen or even flake foods but the similarites to the copepod-eating mandarins and psychedelics are undeniable. i bet he wasn't able to find enough copepods and other little bugs to stay fat and healthy. since he's moved up to some bigger water and regained his bloated appearance. until your tank is more seasoned and you have a sustainable population of lil pods and the like crawling around i would suggest you stay away from the scooter. if you're thinking yellow watchman goby get him a pistol shrimp to play with. they'll be a blast to watch. otherwise lighten the load and get a lil yellow clown goby. lots of color, and its kinda like playing where's waldo every time you look in the tank.

[Ebn]

Spoondigity - the snails that you believe are margaritas are indeed margaritas. The pics of margaritas from MacnReef's link aren't actually margaritas at all...they look more like Nerites (?).