Kessil

Good scavengers/CUC?

Nav

Nav

Guest
BARcard
I do have a good mix of snails to take care of the algae.

I'm specifically trying to replace CLEANER SHRIMP & HERMITS, cos I'm DONE WITH THEM!!! Really... I've tried all methods to keep them away from my corals but it's such a pain.

Today I spot fed my acans (after feeding the cleaner shrimp well) with mysis and pretty much shooed the cleaner shrimp for more than 30min waiting patiently until the acans completely took the food in... The polyps even opened up after a while and now the cleaner runs straight to the acan, stands right on it, sticks his hand/claw deep into the acans mouth & tries to pull things out!!! He did this like 4-5 times within few hours... I just moved the hermits & shrimp to the sump, I'm done guarding corals!

Back to topic, any thoughts on things that can scavenge for leftovers on sand/rock? Anything that won't bother my coral after feeding...

I do have a big Nassarius snail that does a pretty decent job & planning to get few more small ones.

Any other recommendations? I was planning on an orange linckia sometime soon, do they also clean?
 
Hi Navdeep - I love my diamond watchman goby! He sifts through all the sand and all around each rock and corners and never bothers anybody or corals....My goby keeps my sand white and free of algae and food if you don't mind sand moving from one section to another and total dustup initially! The bonus is many hours of free entertainment watching him sift!

I experienced the same thing you did with my shrimp and RBTA who did not make it. My nas snail ate one of my clams so you have to be careful with them if you plan to have a clam eventually but I solved that by putting my next clam up high on a rock...
 
I just let the corals survive through photosynthesis and the others just filter feed. In my system, there's generally enough in the water column for them to live and thrive. I don't really care to hand feed corals on a regular, manual basis.
 
Not sure what's going to be best for your tank but I will tell you what I have and these guys do a good job at keeping my tank clean (including eating aiptasia)

- peppermint shrimps
- serpent sea star
- conch
- tiger cowry
- tiny starfish
- bristle worms (yup they're part of my CUC)

My sand bed is always stark white and my rocks stay clean via good circulation, recently I read a plethora of threads on different forums claiming that nano conchs (strombus maculatus) will actually breed in your tank and self replenish their population. The reason why I have such an odd CUC listed is because I hate having to keep buying CUC, I like things that don't die off in a few months and that's why the claims about nano conchs are wetting my appetite to expand my CUC, if you decide to get some please let me know, I'm looking for them :)
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Nav
The Nano Conchs are interesting and I read some good reviews about it. I couldn't find anyone selling them other than a few hobbyists selling on other nano reef forums...

Any LFS carrying it?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top