Need help with clean up crew

[LimeTwist]

New to the hobby and just bought 24g innovative nuvo long to start out, my tank is on cycling process and i need help on what kind/type and how many clean up crew should i have in my tank(tank has shallow sandbed). I'm planning on having just 5-6 little fishes at most(pair of maroon clown,1damsel,1 hippo tang,anemone crab maybe a purple lobster since i always want 1 as a pet) and some soft corals/anemone. wasn't planning on running skimmers and not a fan of snails.
Any advice would be nice and thanks in advance

[Poseidons frags]

Blue leg hermits!!!

[Spork3245]

Skip the damsel, it will kill or attempt to kill every other fish in your tank. Your tank is way too small for a hippo tang as they get over a foot long and require a 125gallon tank at absolute minimum, but I wouldn't use anything smaller than 8 feet long. A lobster will likely become a fish killer. You may also want to look into a less aggressive clown species if you want more than two fish in that size tank.

In regards to clean-up crew, at full bioload you'll probably want about 20-25 or so snails. You can get hermits too but they will constantly be killing your snails for their shells, but that's life so it really depends on if you want to keep buying replacement snails or not . since you're not a snail fan you could go with all hermits and emerald crabs. Start small and increase the cuc size as the bioload increases.

[LimeTwist]

thank you for the feed back, getting damsel is just testing out my water cycle

[Poseidons frags]

stock with your cuc like 4-5 hermits wait a lil then go from there... nothing good ever happens fast in this hobby! so take it slow can i ask why you don't want to use snails?

[DragKnee]

Originally Posted by LimeTwist

New to the hobby and just bought 24g innovative nuvo long to start out, my tank is on cycling process and i need help on what kind/type and how many clean up crew should i have in my tank(tank has shallow sandbed). I'm planning on having just 5-6 little fishes at most(pair of maroon clown,1damsel,1 hippo tang,anemone crab maybe a purple lobster since i always want 1 as a pet) and some soft corals/anemone. wasn't planning on running skimmers and not a fan of snails.
Any advice would be nice and thanks in advance

You're definitely going about this wrong.

A fish shouldn't be used for the cycle. A tank can cycle itself with live rock. If you're using dry rock, you can ghost feed the tank. With live rock in my Nuvo 16, I saw a very small and quick cycle. Same goes for my 28g cube. No fish were harmed.

A Blue Hippo in a 24g is a huge mistake. They require at least a 180g tank. Even if you get them small, they get big fast.

I didn't read anything about you doing a QT ... Tangs are very well known to bring ich into a system. I lost 4 fish because I thought a small yellow tang would do okay in a 28g cube ... I was wrong; it was very stressed out and a huge ich outbreak ensued. It was a disappointing learning experience.

Maroon clowns are probably thee most aggressive clown. I've never owned them, but I hear even keeping them in pairs can be a challenge. They will want to run your tank once they are matured.

The Innovative Marine SkimMate Protein Skimmer will fit in your Nuvo, and is actually a pretty decent skimmer. I was pulling some nasty skimmate out of my Nuvo 16 in just a couple days, and the skimmer is very easy to use. I definitely recommend looking into it. I just sold mine for $50 since I'm tearing my Nuvo down, so you may be able to find one cheap.

CUC .. It's a darn shame you don't like snails because they are the best CUC you can get. I've had bad luck with blue leg hermits ... they will kill each other, and they will kill snails. I don't like hermits, yes they clean well, but snails tend to clean better - and are more peaceful.

[Deberber]

You will save yourself a lot of time if you look into astrea and seriph snails. Just like 2-3 of each. With hermits I prefer scarlet.

[Spork3245]

Originally Posted by LimeTwist

getting damsel is just testing out my water cycle

Completely unnecessary and cruel to the fish (even if said fish is an evil little demon-spawn ). Buy some live rock or do ghost feedings, continually test the water until you see your cycle is complete. Also, if a damsel survives, it will not share the tank with any other fish as they are super-territorial and will want about 50 gallons all to themselves. Likewise for the Maroon Clowns you plan on keeping.

With all due respect, you really need to research the fish/live stock you want to keep in your tank before purchasing. 24 gallons is small and you are limited in what marine fish you can choose. You have some good livestock options available (various goby species, a few less/non-aggressive clownfish species, pygmy/dwarf wrasse's, etc), just none of what you currently want is do-able unfortunately (unless you only want a single pair of pre-mated/pre-paired maroon clowns). I really don't mean to come off as a jerk here, I'm just being blunt and direct. I have a 90 gallon tank and there were a lot of fish I planned on getting that simply needed way more room than I had available and originally thought was needed, so I fully understand how "crappy" this all sounds.