I have a 75 gallon tank which is only 6 weeks old. Currently there are 3 fish and 12 Margarita snails living in it. I am experiencing my first algae bloom, brown algae. The snails are doing a great job cleaning the LR and the glass, but I am still having a algae problem on my crushed coral substrate. What type of invertebrates to I need to get to clean this up? Do I need more snails, hermit crabs, or some other type of invertebrate. Any suggestions?
Cleanup Crew
- Thread starter MoeDDS
- Start date
bobby
I like to do bad things.
You would be better of changing the cc to sand. Over time the cc collect detrius and other garbage and makes it harder to get rid of. Since you have a cc bed I dont know of anything that could get in it and stir it up, however people have had luck with adding sailfin mollys to eat the algae and say it work quit well. If you add a sail fin molly you need to slowly drip acclimate it over a period of several hours.
If I remove the crushed coral and add live sand, won't that be bad for the fish. I had already thought of doing that, but the person at the not so good LFS that I bought my setup from said that adding sand with fish already in the tank would kill the fish. He said that the sand particles floating around would clog their gills. Do you know if there is any truth to this statement. I now realize that sand would have been the way to go, but at the time I was buying on the advice of the not good FS. I have since found a much better LFS.
jermpool
NAAO President
bobby said:
Actually sand collects that crap too. Just not as quickly.
I would throw some crabs in and maybe get a gravel vac from the pet store and suck some of the algae off the CC.
jermpool
NAAO President
MoeDDS said:
If you did want to change to sand ask your LFS if they can keep your fish until the sand settles. It would be better to change with only 3 fish than wait until later on. If not you could do it with the fish in. You just have to make sure that the sand is so wet before you put it in that it doesn't float. Just do a water change, put the water your taking out in a plastic tub and put your sand inthe old water and "mix" it up so that it gets realy good and wet. Although I have never heard of the sand clogging gills.
bobby
I like to do bad things.
If you buy live sand it will be easier, because you can put the whole bag on the bottom and cut it open in the tank, then slowly slide the bag out.
Bifferwine
I am a girl
Cloudy water shouldn't hurt the fish. However, margarita snails are not a tropical species, they are found off the coast of Northern California and up to Alaska so don't expect them to live more than a few weeks in a tank with temperatures of 76-82 (like most marine tanks are). They slowly cook to death. I found this out with the first batch of snails I bought :grumble: .
A better choice for a reef tank are astraea snails or turbo snails.
You might want to try a lawnmower blenny.
A better choice for a reef tank are astraea snails or turbo snails.
You might want to try a lawnmower blenny.
jermpool
NAAO President
bobby said:
Yup what he said.
yote
In Memoriam
yep,lawnmower bleenies are cool
Adrastos
not getting a free ride
I use the 'reef janitors' from garf.org (mixture of snails and crabs). I have a crushed coral substrate.. the crabs do an excellent job of cleaning. Probably the biggest question should be how deep is your layer of CC?
d.french
Reef enthusiast
i like snail clean up crews only hermit crabs kill snails for shells, i buy cerith snails, nerite snails, astrea snails, and vibex( nassuras snails). If you change to sand bed get some conchs to they will eat algae, brown diatom algae, red cyano. Only crabs i use cause they do awesome job and don't kill snails are sally lightfoot crabs.
d.french
Reef enthusiast
Adrastos
not getting a free ride
We have had no problems with the cerith and mexican hermits that come from garf... we have been using them for over a year with no worries...
d.french
Reef enthusiast
i had two for a year now and were full grown, they act like they were jumping at fish but never caught any or killed any. They ate well with all the algae in my tank and plus something killed them or they were old and died cause last month both found dead. The killer might be more coral banded shrimp it will kill any other shrimp in tank its big full grown also and mean to any other crustacean typ e creatures. I have had one before that attacked fish got rid of him so its really hit and miss if you get a bad one or not.
d.french
Reef enthusiast
oh yeah, i threw one outside when it almost killed a fish last summer, hard to catch.
Bifferwine
I am a girl
Yeah, I'm going to borrow a trap from someone in town to catch my two Sally Lightfoots because they've started to chase the fish and I think they've killed my emerald crabs! They do a good job cleaning at first, but when they mature they become super aggressive to all the other animals.
