It's time to revamp my Clean-Up Crew

[gsxunv04]

Hello everybody,

I currently have a 75g reef tank, my clean up crew consists of 2 urchins(pincushion and short spine), brittle star fish, coral banded shrimp, 1 scarlet hermit crab, 1 emerald crab(HUGE!!! I think he killed all my other emeralds and some snails), and about 25 banded trochus snails.

I used to have other snails, more hermits, and more emerald crabs but they all died or got killed. I have been heavily reliant upon my army of banded trochus snails. I like them because the breed and can flip themselves back over.

I have a few patches of micro-algae that will just not go away. I dony have a HA problem, but in places like on my overflow box and the tops of my koralia's, there is micro-algae that will just not go away(looks like mini-caluerpa, not traditional hair algae.)

Someone recomended I get some turbo snails, so I am going to snag a few of them, I had some in the beginning, but they died like all the others exceot the trochus.
I am also thinking I should get a few more hermit and emerald crabs(should I trade the big one in for smaller ones?)

I have also been considering a cucumber...any other additions I should include in my clean up crew re-establishment?

Thanks All!

[Octopus8]

The workhorses of my clean up crew are the blue-legged hermits. The Turbo Snails (Astrea) do a decent job too. Hermits do kill snails for the shells and a protein supplement every now and then, but they really keep my rocks clean. I recently had at least five types of algae popping up at the base of my Koralia powerheads where the crabs can't reach. Last night I put one crab on each powerhead and woke up to no algae this morning. The same stuff starts to grow on my frags in a tray towards the top of the aquarium. A few hours on the sand and the crabs clean them up.

[gsxunv04]

I picked up 5 astreas, 2 scarlets, and a blue leg hermit. I know I need more but I only had a $20 on me today at the fish store. Thanks for the tips, I will see how the astreas do

[username in use]

check out reefcleaners.org, they hooked me up with a clean up crew that does a great job. You tell them how big your tanks is, what your substrate is and what kind of fish you have and they tell you what you need. Good service, great prices and they have a really quick turnaround between when you order and when you get it.

[gsxunv04]

Nice, thanks for the tips.

[cloak]

Revamp? Don't make a mess to start with...

Nip it in the bud.

[DT's_Reef]

My favorite hermit crabs come from Mexico and have grey legs and red/orange antennae.

I put 30 of them in my 85g system and they cleaned up all my rocks within a week and have kept them perfect since.

I haven't had much luck with the scarlets, blue leg types.