Cleaning Crew

[pweesng]

Hi guys,

first of all, thanks for all the help you guys have been giving so far, without you guys, half the joy of the hobby is gone...

Anyway, i got 3 clown fish in my tank. They don't eat alot.

There are usually a some food left over after they loses interest in their food...

I need a cleaning crew.

Eventually i will be getting either a carpet of some anemones, so the cleaning crew has got to be safe with them.

Appreciate if anyone can make any recommendation... a picture will be really useful too. I'm new to this hobby, so am mostly unfamilar with these creatures.

thanks in advance

[Solo77]

carpet anemones......some witness them eating small fishes...so if you intend to keep neon goby , etc, not advisable. Can get those n. snail, scarlet hermit, gobies, shrimp(when light out, it is likely to move round your tank in search for food), etc. Those big hermit(electric blue leg, etc) will eat your snail and maybe your coraline algae(for some type) and big turbo snail(topple your stuff) ...etc..you may wish to avoid.....

[arcanehacker]

No seahare if you are not gonna mesh up your wavemakers.. they will get stuck there and die.. then again, it will be lots of work if mesh up coz detritus will clog the mesh and therefore under-performing wavemakers. So don't get seahares.. .

Carpet anemone eating small fishes? I kind doubt those that says that.. I bet the fish is already weak or dead to begin with.. a decently healthy specimen shouldn't get caught by a slow moving anemone.. even when they are sleeping..

[TayHongSiang]

i just came back from AM this afternoon, you can get some snails and sally light foot crabs for the start.

[arcanehacker]

i just came back from AM this afternoon, you can get some snails and sally light foot crabs for the start.

they got abalone too.. good thing about abalone is they work at night.. so if you find them ugly, its a good night shift worker..

[Solo77]

Hahaha....that one i am not sure, hear say.....but the reefer was so sure....lol....anyway, i try to keep away from them as i wont want them to move around and sting my other corals....however, i do know some anemones dont move around(immobile type) but didnt try. Anyway, i think they are not effective compared to those inverts that move around....

No seahare if you are not gonna mesh up your wavemakers.. they will get stuck there and die.. then again, it will be lots of work if mesh up coz detritus will clog the mesh and therefore under-performing wavemakers. So don't get seahares.. .

Carpet anemone eating small fishes? I kind doubt those that says that.. I bet the fish is already weak or dead to begin with.. a decently healthy specimen shouldn't get caught by a slow moving anemone.. even when they are sleeping..

[pweesng]

Hmmm... my rocks are not exactly very securly epoxied together, coz i might still wanna rescape... so i think better skip turbo snails. I did hear that they are nasty rock mover.

Are gobies part of cleaning crew category too? they will be a nice option.

I was also thinking of some shrimps....

abalone sounds like an interesting idea... how much are these huh?

Sally light foot also sounds good... can some one confirm they don't eat small fish and don't topple rocks?

[FlameDav]

they got abalone too.. good thing about abalone is they work at night.. so if you find them ugly, its a good night shift worker..

Yea abalones are pretty hard working night worker.

1 is enough to cover my 3ft tank.

However they ocassionally like to do shake they shell around so make sure your rocks are secured.

My abalone once did a "dance" and dislodged my sps frag rock onto my prata. Argh!

Sting Power -> Prata 5:1 SPS frag

[arcanehacker]

Yea abalones are pretty hard working night worker.

1 is enough to cover my 3ft tank.

However they ocassionally like to do shake they shell around so make sure your rocks are secured.

My abalone once did a "dance" and dislodged my sps frag rock onto my prata. Argh!

Sting Power -> Prata 5:1 SPS frag

hehe.. seen once or twice.. seems like they are adjusting their shell or somethin.. but I don't think they are as bad as turbo snails on knocking down items..

[FlameDav]

hehe.. seen once or twice.. seems like they are adjusting their shell or somethin.. but I don't think they are as bad as turbo snails on knocking down items..

Mine does the dance whenever it felt threatened or it crawled into 1 way holes and dono how to back out.

Maybe I must teach it how to do the michael jackson moon walk 1 day

-------

Shrimps are actually very good scavangers for left over food. They can virtually 'smell' from any part of the tank.

[pweesng]

Shrimps are actually very good scavangers for left over food. They can virtually 'smell' from any part of the tank.

Any recommendation? what kind of shrimps should i get? also, for a 3 footer... how many shrimp? 3? tia

[yikai]

No seahare if you are not gonna mesh up your wavemakers.. they will get stuck there and die.. then again, it will be lots of work if mesh up coz detritus will clog the mesh and therefore under-performing wavemakers. So don't get seahares.. .

Carpet anemone eating small fishes? I kind doubt those that says that.. I bet the fish is already weak or dead to begin with.. a decently healthy specimen shouldn't get caught by a slow moving anemone.. even when they are sleeping..

they can and will... have you touched a carpet before? its extremely sticky. extremely. have seen them eat a perfectly healthy neon goby and clown gobies before.

[Underwater]

Can't agree more with bro solo about electric blue hermit eating coraline algae. Mine did so, and even cleared up my GSP.

I would not trust sally foot crab, cute when small, but mine was a terror when it got bigger.

[Dazza]

Carpet anemones will eat anything that happened to get caught by its tentacles. I hv lost healthy abalones, some fishes ( esp gobies ) and even a tuxedo urchin to my carpets ...

[comycus]

Any recommendation? what kind of shrimps should i get? also, for a 3 footer... how many shrimp? 3? tia

If you are thinking of getting cleaner shrimps (these buggers really eat anything...) i think 1 small one is enough terror.

Actually I have 2 turbo snails but i've never encountered them shifting my rocks, even in my previous scape where I had smaller sized rocks. Maybe I'm lucky so far?

Carpet anemones are really beautiful! I just find the sacrifices and risks to put them in my tank too much and too high, rather get other beautiful corals instead. just my 2 cents.

[FlameDav]

Any recommendation? what kind of shrimps should i get? also, for a 3 footer... how many shrimp? 3? tia

It's up to you. "skunk" Cleaner shrimps are a goo option. Easy to keep and are not so agressive.

1 to 2 should be good enough for you.

I used to keep them to eat left overs.

Currently I'm keeping 2 peppermint shrimps to keep my tank clean

[Dispar_Anthias]

Nassarius snails are fantastic clean up crews

[pokmingsheng]

Nassarius snails are fantastic clean up crews

i keep about 4 Nassarius snails in my 2ft cube..

they'll normally be under the sand,

come feeding time when they smell the food,

they'll all come out from the sand at the same time..

very interesting creatures..

they'll eat up the leftover food that drops on the sand bed during feeding..