cleanup crew question

[Tremolo]

How many and what kind of snail and hermits should there be in a 29 gallon tank? I have read that hermits should be 1 per gallon. Is this true? I have asked the LFS and they pretty much said as many as you want. I would think that there should be a rough guideline as to how many you should have.

[petoonia]

I would add about 10 hermits. 1 per gallon is too many, unless you want alot of hermits. For snails I usually add about 1 snail per every 2 gallons. I would add a mixture of different snails astrea, trochus, turbo..etc. Also if you have a sand bed I would add about 5-10 Nassarius snails.

[steven_dean17]

IMO forget the crabs and only add several different kinds of snails. Crabs kill snails and again, IMO thats just a hassel.

[burks]

I tend to stay away from hermits myself. But if you are dead set on them, 10-12 should be just fine.

To help prevent snail killing add some extra empty shells so the hermits can move to them rather than killing the snails. It will still happen but to a lesser extent.