Clean-up Crew

[runningrandy04]

Ok..so about a week after I started my cycle I went to the lfs to return a water bucket and get my water tested. Found out that my nitrites were gone. I was suprised that my nitrites were gone after a week but figured it was possible since I got live sand with the live rock. Anyway, I decided to get some clean-up crew to get on top of the red and green algae spike. I had a blue legged crab already so I figured I would go with some more crabs. I got 12 small red legged hermit crabs for my 20gal tank. Put them in and 3 days later they have pretty much cleaned up all the green and red algae. Did I get too many and should I be worried about them keeping the rock too clean? Sorry about the long post. I tend to get off point late at night.

 

[Bifferwine]

If you add too many cleaners at once, they sometimes can deplete the food source in your tank, then starve to death and crash. You could always return a few to the store. But I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's glad that they did such a good job cleaning your tank up!

 

[runningrandy04]

Well they are really small and really cheap so if the food supply does run out its not a big deal. They still got another days worth of algae to eat, and I'm gonna start putting food in the tank every few days to give it a bigger bio-load before I add any fish. That will give them something to eat and probably promote algae growth which gives them even more.

 

[Altohombre]

I've read that putting some dried seaweed in the tank will help them survive the times when there isn't much algae to eat. However I have also heard that they can become a little dependent on that seaweed and do less work overtime. I think that can apply to most things you put in a tank. They are like humans and the lazy factor kicks in.

 

[reeffreak]

Tie some seaweed sheet to a rock like Alto mentioned.I do occassionally for the turbo snails to feed on.

 

[runningrandy04]

thanks for the tip on the seaweed but it seems they are still trying to keep up with the green algae. i'll probably be using the seaweed in the future though.