Clean up Crew (CUC) question

Do you add your CUC before you add your fish or after? I will let my tank cycle first than add the CUC. Is this the correct order, or do I add the fish first and than the CUC? If I add the CUC first, and just feed them like fish wont this give them enough food? I just dont want alot of algae in my aquarium

 

After your tank is cycled add the CUC they will have plenty to eat.

 

I say wait on the CUC, inverts are a lot more sensitive than fish.

 

I would definitely add the CuC at least before you finish stocking the tank with fish.

I prefer adding it once the cycle finishes and then letting the CuC "catch up" before adding any more fish (bc i cycle with fish, so there is already a fish there)

 

I'd put some cheap ones in there as soon as algae starts to grow, some reef hermits and some astrea snails will do you good.

Also I've never had a single astrea snail die on me, and my hermits only die now because things eat them!

I had a friend nuke his tank with some uncured LR (ammo was off the charts) much worse than a regular cycle... killed most of his fish... except his astrea snails and blue legged hermits were fine... also his YT damsel was fine.

Astreas and blue legs were the first thing i put in my tank... and there will be plenty of food for them... and if they die, who cares they are dirt cheap.

Only thing you don't really wanna do is put a huge CUC in there off the bat without a lot of algae for them to eat, so do a little bit at a time... you don't want a massive die off of snails and crabs because they are starved... your tank will always support a decent sized population of CUC critters because there will always be algae and crap for them to eat.

 

the ideas of having a CuC die off are overblown IMO. Get a quote from ReefCleaners.org | Clean Up Crews and Macro Algae - Home and follow their advise.

I added around 200 snails to my 55 after cycle and got a lot of "die-off" related warnings, etc.... the die-off never happened.

See if this thread helps.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/inverts/clean-up-crew-53007.html