Clean Up Crew

[iFish]

Hey everyone. Nano-Reef Update (12/7/02)

 

Livestock:

1 Blue Tipped Acro

1 Hammer Frag (Growing!!!!!)

1 Orchid Dottyback

1 Cleaner Shrimp

*All doing well (knock on wood)

 

equip:

 

2x65watt pc

aqauclear mini

7 peices lr

no sand

 

I added some food to the tank and got alage instantly but (knock on wood) it is only on the glass, Rock is getting coraline.

 

what snail would be reccomended to clean up? some easy scavengers that dont need sand ould also help

 

gracias

[BustytheSnowMaam]

I like margaritas and bajas- bajas have another common name but I can't think of it.

Tasha

[Fishobob]

Well over here we can only get turbo and trochus snails. Trochus are pretty cool and clean well IMO

[printerdown01]

I always tell people to keep a biologically diverse snail crew. My reason follows: Different snails are better at eating different algae. Astrea, trochus, turbos (way too large for nanos IMO, they tend to knock things over all the time), and margaritas are all around good algae eaters. I keep my snail crew stacked heavy on the astrea because of this. But other lesser used benificial algae eating snails include: nerites, bahas, ceriths, stomatella varia, conchs (fighting and queen). Conchs are great for the sand bed, and spend the majority of their time on it cleaning up algae -surprisingly gentle for their size! Also you might find nass. and bumble bee snails to be to your liking. They will NOT eat algae. However, they will pick up decaying stuff up off the bottom of your tank. Nass snails are VERY active. These guys are a hermet alternative. When using snails to do ditritus and food clean-up you don't have to worry about them attacking your snails for shells . Also be aware that there are 2 types of cerith snails (ok well WAY more that 2 types, but I'm going to section them into two catagories) one type burrows -they are usually long and VERY thin the other type will stay above the sand -they are usually wider. There are some description exceptions (i.e. I know that one wide species does burrow, but this is a decent general guideline). Both types are benificial. The type that burrows will help keep your sand bed clean (nass. snails also burrow). The ceriths that won't burrow will do a great job of taking out diatoms (and will improve the visibility of the front of your tank)!

-my snail possibility list (the long version)...

[Nishant3789]

i hear fighting conchs work great, im going to get one next time. i like margaritas too,m they dont seem to work too fast but they do a very good job of cleaning their plate.

nishant

[iFish]

yah right now i am diggin life w/out a sandbed so I want to be sure i dont get anything that needs a sandbed 2 be happy

 

thanks for the help