# Clean up crew recommendations ?



## MaxTO (Apr 8, 2013)

Hello all 

I am currently cycling my first ever saltwater aquarium using live rock and as I am sure you can imagine , I can't wait to purchase my first non rock tenants 

From my limited understanding , the first livestock that I get should be the trusted clean up crew . 

Assuming this is correct , what would make a nice "crew" for a 125 gal reef tank ?

Would highly appreciate any help you can offer in helping me put together a shopping list


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## thmh (Mar 17, 2011)

i would start with snails and get a mixture of them ie: trochus, cerith , nassarius and margarita snail. imo i wouldn't get any hermits crabs because for the amount they clean its not worth the amount of snails they kill


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

If you added live rock in your tank, you should wait and see what hitchhikers you have there.

If you added dry rock, you should take from someone around here some bristle stars (not the green stars, only black), amphipods, copepods, asterinas (very good for cleaning algae).

When you are coming to Toronto, I can give you a few bristle and asterinas starfish.
I started with 1 bristle star and now whey are everywhere "flying" in the water when light are out.

Nassarius are the best (NAFB - 1$).
Hermit crabs - you should keep only 1 or 2. They grow big and kill each other, but they eat a lot of detritus. 
Later, you will see what you like: Peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, fire shrimp...


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## sooley19 (Jan 7, 2009)

what is NAFB?


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## kamal (Apr 21, 2009)

north american fish breeeders


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

sooley19 said:


> what is NAFB?


This is NAFB.


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## thmh (Mar 17, 2011)

Seaumarine and R2O have clean up crew as well

PEWPEW!


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## Dax (Sep 29, 2010)

MaxTO said:


> Hello all
> 
> I am currently cycling my first ever saltwater aquarium using live rock and as I am sure you can imagine , I can't wait to purchase my first non rock tenants
> 
> ...


Some things to think about;

-Work backwards from your desired end product because some things don't go well with others. Difficult to do now, but make a list of must haves.
-If you're going reef, keep in mind that a lot of the fish choices are out
-On the reef front, decide softies, LPS, SPS, or mixed
-Can't go wrong with snails. Too soon for Nassarius and only if you have sand >2".
-Hermits will take out your snails if you don't have enough food yet and after that they will do it just for fun. Get the scarlet ones.
- Make sure you don't add a lot of anything at once. Always give the system time to stabilize otherwise you'll find your experience level will shoot up faster than you prefer.

Once the tank is stable, just to get some movement, I recommend getting 5 chromis. They are cheap, active, and reef safe. This will initially add some real life to the system and you can slowly add to it without worry.

Go to this link and pretend you are getting everything at once. Then work on adding those items one at a time and in the proper order.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/

Make a list, stick it here and I'm sure a lot of people would be happy to guide you through.


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## MaxTO (Apr 8, 2013)

You guys are a great help !

So snails it is  after adding my first batch of snails how long should I be waiting before adding more items to my tank ? 

Would I add more clean up crew Critters first , or could I then start to think about adding some clown fish ? 

At what point of slowly adding stock would it be safe to start adding soft coral and some anemone ? 

Gee a lot of questions I know so I thank you all in advance


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

First fish and corals, when you have 0 ppm on your tests.

First rule in saltwater: patience

Anemones are very dangerous when they die. If your tank in not stable it will die. You should wait at least 6 moths until your first anemone. But until then you have a lot of work to do.


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## MaxTO (Apr 8, 2013)

Dax , that site you posted is pretty cool !

I must say , I like that Cerith snail but wonder about there chances of surviving if they were the first guys put into a just cycled tank ? 

I see that the supplier sells them in a "five pack" , would 5 be the correct amount to start with when adding my first bunch ?

Also , apparently there is a shrimp that will eat parasites off your fish ? Once my tank grows and has a number of fish in the tank I could see a shrimp like that being helpful .


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## MaxTO (Apr 8, 2013)

TankCla said:


> First fish and corals, when you have 0 ppm on your tests.
> 
> First rule in saltwater: patience
> 
> Anemones are very dangerous when they die. If your tank in not stable it will die. You should wait at least 6 moths until your first anemone. But until then you have a lot of work to do.


Thanks for the heads up , very good tip .

Just to clarify , the 0ppm , what chemical are you referring to , Nitrogen ?


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## fesso clown (Nov 15, 2011)

The parameters you need to test for at this point are:
-Ammonia 
-Nitrite 
-Nitrate 
these should all be damn close to 0 ppm (parts per million) before you add any fish or coral. 
Add some snails and wait a week and test. 
You also want to make sure your salinity is stable. Do you have an Auto-top-off? How are you dealing with evaporation? Remember as your saltwater evaporates the salinity rises so you should be topping off a couple times a day with RO water rather then all at once.


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

MaxTO said:


> Also , apparently there is a shrimp that will eat parasites off your fish ? Once my tank grows and has a number of fish in the tank I could see a shrimp like that being helpful .


Cleaner shrimp.


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## MaxTO (Apr 8, 2013)

fesso clown said:


> The parameters you need to test for at this point are:
> -Ammonia
> -Nitrite
> -Nitrate
> ...


Good question for a noob and thanks for asking as I hope you can tell me if I am going about this the right way

I do not have an auto feed and I have been doing it myself . At this point I have been losing roughly 8 to 12 cups of water a day . I have been topping it up with RO water roughly twice a day to maintain as opposed to doing the full 12 cups at the end of the day .

Does the 8 to 12 cups seem excessive , or about right ?


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## MaxTO (Apr 8, 2013)

TankCla said:


> If you added live rock in your tank, you should wait and see what hitchhikers you have there.
> 
> If you added dry rock, you should take from someone around here some bristle stars (not the green stars, only black), amphipods, copepods, asterinas (very good for cleaning algae).
> 
> ...


I actually added live rock . When should I first start noticing these hitch hikers and how do I determine just what they are ?


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

When the lights are out, look with a small flash light in your tank. You will see the: worms, amphipods and other stuff. 
Put some pictures here and we will tell you what they are.


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

the most common types of hitch hikers are bristle worms, bristle stars, crabs (most are bad) and snails. Most of the worms and stars you won't see until it's dark so what you could do is wait until the lights have been out for a few hours then take a soft flashlight or a red led and check your tank for movement while it's dark.

My suggestion for you and your tank is this:
Let the tank go thru it's cycle and beyond. You can add a couple snails to add life to it but don't go overboard. When I mean a couple I literally mean two. What you want to do is add a bit of life a little at a time but you don't want to add so much that the tank can't keep up with the new life.

What I did was overloaded my tank with algae at the beginning and refused to clean the glass or any other surface to ensure the snails I was putting in would have enough to eat. Then I went and bought a total of 30 snails for my 20 gallon tank. When they went in the tank I couldn't even see the glass and then the next morning they made the tank spotless. This way you know they're not going to starve and the ones that do starve weren't meant to live anyways. You'll have a bit of die off so it's better to buy a bit over what you need and then clean up the ones that die off as you go. 

Emerald crabs are also a great option for CUC but you need an established tank for them since they are opportunity eaters. They'll eat anything they can if they're hungry including any decorative macro or possibly softies.

Hermits just plain suck. They knock over everything and eat your snails just for fun.

Lastly, if you want some nassarius snails feel free to drop by my house since I have around 200 in my tank right now that are waiting to go to a new home.


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## Dax (Sep 29, 2010)

I have a 120 and top up about 2 to 3 litres everyday, so sounds about right.

Stay away from anemones and corals for now. Their requirements need someone with experience and since you are a noob you will have difficulty diagnosing or controlling any problems. With only fish it is a whole lot easier and there are simpler solutions. Good news is with a FOWLR (fish only with live rock) you can pretty much start adding corals with no problems as long as the lighting levels are good.

As Alt said, go easy with the CUC at first or they will starve. Since you want a clown, you could probably add one after your parametes go to 0 (ammonia and nitrite); they are pretty hardy.


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## MaxTO (Apr 8, 2013)

Agreed , I do plan on doing a full cycle before adding and life .
Once cycled , if I have understood the posts correctly , I will then add roughly 20 snails and wait a week or two before adding anything else , while checking my levels the whole time .

Now for my newly discovered cycling problem  ...

It seems that I was given the wrong sump and as such I have contacted the store that I bought it from . The store set my tank up and they put in the wrong sump and because I got the wrong sump I was then given the wrong skimmer do to lack of vertical inches of water in the skimmer chamber I was given the SWC 120 , rather than the SWC 160 that I paid for .

The SWC skimmer that I was given is way undersized for my tank . 
My hope is that when they correct these issues ( by giving me what I paid for ) that the larger sump will allow me to then in turn have the correct skimmer .

The sump I got was " Marineland High Capacity Acrylic Sump model 3"

The Sump I paid for "Marineland High Capacity Acrylic Sump model 4"

The skimmer I got "SWC120"

The skimmer I paid for "SCW 160"

So back to the cycle issue ..
The store now needs to come back and remove and then reinstall the new components . As such , could this through off my cycling ? 

Seems I might have to start another thread regarding my newly discovered tank issue 

However , if any of you out there have a model 4 sump , as mentioned above , please let me know as I have a couple of questions that I would love to ask


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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

MaxTO said:


> As such , could this through off my cycling ?


Nothing will happen to your cycle. They will replace the sump and skimmer and use the same water from the old sump. No worries about this. Worry about BA competencies.


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## MaxTO (Apr 8, 2013)

TankCla said:


> Nothing will happen to your cycle. They will replace the sump and skimmer and use the same water from the old sump. No worries about this. Worry about BA competencies.


Oh no , did they set me up with ok equipment , assuming I get all that I paid for ? Or should warning bells be going off right about now ?


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## fesso clown (Nov 15, 2011)

Because you shopped at BA's you did pay a bit of a premium on decent equipment. SWC 160 and a Marineland sump are good products, you'll be happy with them don't worry about that (once you get the sizes you actually paid for).


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