Cleaning crew

[swampc]

I am wondering if I should add to the cleaning crew of my tank? I currently have:

40g marine tank with about 30lbs of live rock
2 turbo snails
3 other snails (sorry not sure of the kind)
2 very small crabs (red leg?)
1 red and white cleaner shrimp
1 goby (cleaner or not?)

Fish
3 damsels
1 yellow tang

Have a Hagen Fluval Canister filter and a protein skimmer. I am switching to a Advanced aquaria WD-1 Wet Dry system with a Magdrive 350 gal per hour pump within the next two weeks.

I plan to add annomes and a few clown fish as the tank becomes more established with the new filtering system.

 

[hyrookin]

well you can certainly add a couple more hermits and
quite a few more snails, but I think you may have an overstocking issue
as far as the tang, damsels, goby, and more clowns goes.

 

[Navarre]

Youe cleanup crew is vastly under staffed im afraid. look into about aother 15 hermits.. possibly 20.. about another 5-10 turbo snails and maybe another 10 cerith snails. that should just about cover it.
As for your stocking levels. the 3 damels are ok but they do get aggressive, and the tang is in a tank far far too small for it (100 gallons minimum sorry)

 

[swampc]

WOW! That sounds like a lot but if that will keep the tank clean, I am up for it. Will any of the crabs or snails harm any anemones that will later be placed in the tank?

Also, can I introduce them all in the tank at once or should I stagger the introduction to 5 or 10 at a time?

Thanks

 

[The Reefer]

Put them in all at once.. and none should hurt any of your corals. They might knock a few down if you don't either glue them or putty them into place.

 

[sammydee]

Err... did you not listen to what Navarre said? You are already overstocked, so adding anemone's and stuff is not a good idea. also, do something about that Tang. They need pods to live on, and unless you have a big refugium, chances are there aren't enough in your 40G.

EDIT: oops, my bad, its MANDARINS not tangs which need to eat the pods.

 

[swampc]

I saw that response. Forgive my ignorance but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to include the anemones in the fish count along with the cleaning crew. I plan to move some fish to a much larger tank at my friends home.

Thanks

 

[sammydee]

Ah ok, sorry to jump down your throat. It's just sometimes there are people who refuse to listen to anything they don't want to hear.

You wanna be careful about anemones though, and make sure you know exactly what you are doing because they're supposed to be pretty hard to look after.

 

[Navarre]

Dont touch anemones.. take the far easier sarcophyton instead

 

[Opcn]

Inverts useually aren't counted as bioload, because they have such a small load and the photosynthesisers can act as plants would at times.

 

[ostrow]

I disagree strongly on the cleanup crew recommendation. For a 40G I wouldn't get more than one or two turbos and only Mexican turbos. For the rest I'd go either crabs (max 10) or snails. If mixing ONLY scarlet reef hermits. Otherwise your snails are likely to end up lunch. For snails, trochus sp. and maybe 3-5 of them no more. You could do 6 or so nerites or margaritas (the latter are dicey and often don't survive in aquaria). Ceriths maybe a half dozen. 2-3 nassarius vibex assuming you have sand, or 1 fighting conch, otherwise skip. That's it.