what cleaning crew with Puffer, Trigger as fishes in the tank

[freshwater]

Is Cleaning crew (crabs, snails..)needed in FOWLR with Fishes like angel, Trigger and puffer in the Tank. Dont these fishes can pick on these crabs or snails. What people use in FOWLR with larger fishes to clean up the sand and rocks with detrius and hair algae.

[soni]

water changes and your arm are the only cleaning crew you can get in that tank

[frankie33]

soni, that avatar is just mean, but kinda funny too! I've seen people on here with some success with large hermits and heard possibly cowries...

[pinkie]

I think Soni said it best with water changes and manual labor. I have a semi-agressive FOWLR with puffers, large angels, an eel and more, and I have tried hermit crabs, snails, cowries, urchins, all of which have been eaten. My puffers are lazy though and they don't eat the hermits that often since it is too much work for them compared to food dropped in the tank. About twice a week though I see one or two eaten. The ONLY type of urchin they have yet to eat is a pencil, and I had a sand sifting goby who was recently eaten by my snowflake eel who wanted his hideout.

As Soni said, your only real way of maintaining the tank will have to be primarily manual IMO

[pinkie]

Oops, double post!

[freshwater]

Yeah I am ready to clean the Glass, but was curious about the sand and rocks for Hailr algae and detrius. I might put some large size Crab though to see if they can survive and keep cleaning the detrius.

[pinkie]

I just noticed you live quite close to me. I am in Plainfield a couple times a week, and I love Upscale Aquatics near 59 and 30. I'm sure you're familiar with the area if not the store. They have also been really helpful with questions I couldn't get answers to elsewere. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

[freshwater]

yeah they are very close to my home and I do stop by few times and bought stuff from them before, recently i have observe their prices are way up but they stock up pretty good.

[soni]

chk the TDS of your water. High TDS will cause the hair algae

[saltyESQ]

I have a 210g, with a queen and humu trigger. They don't bother cowerys or large hermits. The problem is the large hermits will kill the cowerys and each other. So in the end, you can keep 1 large hermit. But that one hermit can really clean up!

[freshwater]

soni - I just start a new tank and its going thru a cycle , it has LR + Base rock + Sand. Hair algae is not an issue now but might get out of hand down the road if I dont keep my water parameters in check.

I can see my rock start getting the brown stuff (diatom) already,
Ammonia and Nitrite readings are visible.
Salinity is 1.023.

[freshwater]

I was thinking to get these Crabs, I know the strongest one will survive. So which one is better the red or blue...

http://www.marinedepotlive.com/marsh...ts--crabs.html

http://www.marinedepotlive.com/hermi...ts--crabs.html

[pinkie]

I have seen quite a few of the very large hermits killed by puffers and triggers, hopefully yours will do better.

Also a note about Upscale, their prices are quite high, but they get really nice fish from places like Hawaii and Vanuatu instead of India and places that use Cyanide. Also, very few prices are final, especially once they get to know you. Last time I was there I got a fish listed as $180 for $120, which was very reasonable for the high quality they sell IMO. When I got my volitan lionfish, I got 4 from places like petco, and NONE would eat even live foods, all starved. I got one from them and payed the premium, he's been the healthiest fish and ate frozen foods from day 1. You really get what you pay for.

[JStorey]

I have a large hermit crab in my FOWLR and no one bothers him. He doesn't do much for algae control IMO but does a great job of cleaning up any leftovers. I did have 3 choc chip starfish and the crab ate 2 of them.

[freewilly2]

let us know how it goes

[clekchau]

Originally posted by soni
water changes and your arm are the only cleaning crew you can get in that tank

what about a tiger cowrie?

[luke33]

I had two large hermits in my tank, but the one ripped the other one out of his shell and ripped his legs off and carried around his carcass for a whole day......and ate at it. He's in the timeout tank for this reason and he also kept stabbing my DF puffer and other fish leaving wounds.......i hate that thing but its not his fault, so i let him live in my qt.....by himself! He doesn't do much cleaning wise when it comes to algae imo. I've had luck with small hermits but not so much snails.

[nickiwit]

We used to keep large turbo snails in our FOWLR. They learned to only come out to eat at night.

I love the electric blue hermit crab from Marine Depot Live. I have had mine for a long time but I never kept it in my FOWLR.