# reef custodians



## gmann (Mar 26, 2013)

Hey all,

Just wondering if my current custodian crew is enough...

I have a 45 gallon tank. My current crew consists of:

1 cleaner shrimp
3 strawberry top hat snails
3 Nassarius snails, although I have not seen them in a while

I was thinking of going down to J&L and grab some: nerite, astrea, cerith, and maybe another Nassarius. How many total should i be looking to get? Ultimately I would like to trade in the top hats as they are giants lol


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

Look at their package deals at the bottom of this page to get an idea.

I had the following for my 29g:
12 - Blue Legged Hermits
3 - Red Scarlet Hermit
5 - Astrea Snails
5 - Margarita Snails
5 - Cerith Snails


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## Nicole (Nov 21, 2011)

I had strawberry top hats but later got rid of them. They are great at eating algae but they will bulldoze your corals over. I have 3-4 astrea, 2 nassarius, 1 turbo, 3-4 blue legged hermits, 3-4 red scarlet hermits in my 20G.
Your nassarius are most likely underneath the sand. Trade in the strawberries for some hermits.


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## gmann (Mar 26, 2013)

awesome, i was always curious if people followed the 1 to 1 rule. I dont think I will get any crabs, as I had them before and mysteriously lost fish. That could be due to the few hitch hiker crabs I found, but not somthing I want to risk again


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

i got 7 blue legs and 2 red legs and some reef snails in my 29 gal id do 10 reef snails and 10 blue legs 5 redlegs then a few electrick blue or orange hermeis


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## JTang (Apr 21, 2010)

I don't follow the 1-1 rule. I would be broke if I do. . I rather spend the $$ on more corals. Lol

My snails tend to disappear after a while. There are probably around 30 hermits n 20 snails left in my 120g.


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## Rogue9 (Apr 21, 2010)

I find small turbos are good as well as Ring cowries. 
Turbos I usually have to put on patches of algae to help them out, but as they get big they do knock frags off my rack. 
another thing with snails I have, and found others to buy too many only to have them die out till theres a balance. I've since started to sugguest buying fewer than you think you need and manually moving them to algae areas and see if that works, rather than buying lots in hopes they will search and destroy. 
My longest lasting snails are turbo's, cowries and nassarius(same 4 for a few years now), margaritas have long since died off and i haven't replaced them. 


Hermits, I will not get the blue legged variety, high mortality rate and they went after my snails for shells or food.
I have a pair of Electric blue hermits (they are different from the regular blue legged tiny ones JL has.) and they've never touched a snail and are pretty good at algae. they like climbing my corals and frag racks... I usually find them perched in the high branches of an acro colony at night. 

Red Scarlet hermits were good for me when I had them, just hope there isn't a mix up and they grow into the baseball sized red legged variety. =)


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## gmann (Mar 26, 2013)

seems like everyone that replied has some hermits, and that I was the only one that had killer hermits lol. I guess I should look into adding a hermit or two when I go down to J&L


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## spit.fire (Jan 3, 2011)

IMO hermits suck, eventually they just kill all your snails and knock ofer any unglued corals, everytime I find on in my display I throw it in the sump


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## super7 (Apr 29, 2010)

gmann said:


> Hey all,
> 
> Just wondering if my current custodian crew is enough...
> 
> ...


Your clean up crew sounds fine. Let the snails reproduce to achieve a good balance of food vs population. Snails reproduce very easily when happy.

Super7


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## gmann (Mar 26, 2013)

Thanks for all the input everyone. I think im gonna try getting a couple of these electric hermits, they seem pretty cool. I will probably trade in my strawberry snails or donate them depending on the store policy. Cheers!


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