Time to stock up on some janitors.

I'm about to stock up on some detrivores at reefcleaners. In your experiences , what does the best job? I don't care if they eat hair algae or not. I just wish my tank had less poo.

 

well in my tank I have the following for cleanup

30 assorted snails ranging from half inch to 1 inch
15 hermit crabs in my sump
2 Sally light foot crabs
4 Blood/Fire Shrimp
and of curse cant forget my 2 Tangs

 

Well, I can tell you this about detritivores, contrary to popular belief, even detritivores create "poo" as every creature creates waste. Granted the amount of clean up detritivores do compared to the waste they create is typically in your favor, BUT you need to pick out your CUC wisely. You are looking for stricly detrivores to remove "poo"? Why do you just siphon it and save your money? Most detritivores aren't going to be eating poo like gangbusters anyhow. I'm not seeing anything thats going to fit YOUR bill on reefcleaners.com, but I will tell you a couple things to avoid, Horseshoe crabs(HUGE-TEMPERATE WATER) Sally lightfoot-sorry hackem, but they end up turning into the devil when they get large and WILL nip coral and shrimp and the like, green serpent star-unless you like to live dangerously, they are ambush hunters and can and will eat fish and other inverts. I COULD make this list two pages but these are the ones I usually see in pre made CUC packages that have no place in a CUC. Cucumbers can be very efficient at keepin the sand bed clean but if hurt or dying they can and will nuke a tank-holothurin.

Good luck and post more ?s if you got them

 

:grinthumbs: Karma to you

 

Serpent Sea Star
Black Diadema Urchin
Queen or Fighting Conch
Red-Lipped Blenny

Increase water movement and filtration!
Decrease feedings
perform water changes weekly!
All these will assist you in maintaining the most efficient and effective scenario for you and your livestock!

 

Queen conchs will grow to close to a foot and only reside in the sand bed so unless you have a HUGE tank, leave them bad boys in the ocean. They are interesting though, you can see an iris and pupil in their eye, weird huh?

 

I personally think Trochus snails are most definitely the best on the market! They are expensive but they live 5-7 years and seem to be very hearty. I'm planning on picking up 20 of them at a whopping $50 but it is worth it. My second fav. is Nassarius snails, they will clean up after feeding and keep your sandbed well sifted. These are my 2 favorites and by far the best overall IMO. Reduce feeding like someone else said too, it seems like the majority of people overfeed. Good luck!

 

+1 on the trochus snails. They look nice, eat tons of algae, and can flip themselves if they fall. I just picked up a bunch of margarita snails today as well, they're supposed to be fairly hearty, and so far have mowed down a bunch of algae in my tank in just a few hours. They also have an interesting pattern on their shell.

 

Another HUGE plus that I forgot about, these things are great!

 

Turbo snails eat a lot.
I have some nassarius, cerith snails. Blue leg hermits.
Sand sifting crabs(rarely see them but interesting when you do)
emerald crab(I don't think he's killed anything yet)
2 Cleaner shrimp
Peppermint