Best reef cleaner package for the money.....

[gatorracer]

I need to get a new reef cleaner package. Right now I have some mexican turbos, a ton of baby turbos, a sally lightfoot crab and that is about it. I need to get a cleaner group together. I need it to mostly eat detirius and hair algae. I would take suggestions if you have them on sites or even just species in general. I linked the e-bay one that seems to be the most livestock for the money that I could find so far.

http://cgi.ebay.com/LIVE-CORAL-COMPLETE ... dZViewItem

I would love to hear some advice though. If you go to liveaquaria.com you can pick 60 dollars worth and they will ship it for free so that seems like a good deal to but it costs quite a bit more.

I could really use some knowledgable advice please.

 

[Anonymous]

I bought a bunch of ceriths and astreas from http://reeftopia.com/ I was happy with the snails, and I really like those ceriths! They sure do stay busy.

 

[Entacmaea]

Hey gatorracer- How many do you have now? I would caution in getting such a large package for a 100 gallon- In my experience snails and hermits don't do good work on hair algae, mostly film and detritis. I've had good luck with emeralds on hair algae. A large group like that will maybe clean for a while, then will probably start to die off for lack of food. Horseshoe crabs, depending on their size, can be huge bullies- and can grow quite large. Regardless of the label, they are opportunistic feeders like most hermits. I like to stay with snails mostly, Nassarius being my favorite- they will stir the sand and eat any left over food.

Though a little more, I would start with one of the $60 packages from liveaquaria (formerly etropicals, which Foster's and Smith bought), then add one more depending on what you observe working, and what you need. You might not need another. You can get quite a lot with the $60 package, and two still cost less than the e-bay package. Some Nassarius, Bumble Bee, 1 fighting conch, and a couple Emerald crabs would be a great place to start. Stay away from the nudibranchs, they haven't survived long for me...

Good luck. IMO it is better to go slower than to dump huge numebrs of consumers into a tank, not being sure how many will starve and die...

Best, Peter

 

[gatorracer]

Thanks for the advice. I never really thought I could get two orders for the same price as the other. I think that is exactly what I will do. I have one sally lightfoot in my tank already do you think mixing crabs is a good idea? There is lots of rock but I wasn't sure if they were generally teritorial.

The last question I have then is on live aquaria they have Nasarius snails for like a dollar and change. On e-bay you can get 300 for 12 bucks and 25 dollars shipping. Wouldnt I rather get 100 or so for my tank? I put 50 in a tank I take care of for a business and there were about 12 that didn't make the shipping and I payed 23 dollars for the whole deal. Is there any difference between them? Seller says that he gets his somewhere in the Carolinas.

Thanks again

 

[Ben1]

I like reeftopia, as there size is better the Keys Critters. But I use Keyscritters as they have better pricing. If you can get in with your local reef club they will waive the box charge and when you split the shipping it gets very cheap.

http://rockyshores.saltyzoo.com/price/

Last time we did it I ended up paying like .25 a snail (astreas and ceriths) including shipping. But the ceriths from KC are very small.

HTH