******Depends on tank. In a nano, your big herbivores are a no-go. I find that my best fish for eating algae are the Rainford's goby, Tailspot Blenny and the flame tail blenny. However, None of these guys are as effective as a tang so my primary clean up crew, by far, is still snails (3 sand tiger conches, 15-20 asterinas, and a handful of cerith snails) and a tuxedo urchin. Note that I feed a ton, so I wouldn't recommend 3 sand tiger conches to anyone. I've had mine for 2 years, but most nano tanks would only be able to support 1 as long as you feed enough (note I have a 20g AIO from waterbox). I run pretty high nutrients and have no visible algae aside from film algae that grows on the glass.
I started my tank with 10 trochus from algae barn and it turned into 300 plus in maybe 8 months. By far the single best purchase I’ve made for my reef.
I like that you bring up crabs and snails starving. I've actually been slowly adding my CUC to attempt to prevent that. I figure I can add a couple every week or so until they start to keep up with the algae growth. That way I don't end up starving them. I figure we add other livestock slowly so why wouldn't we want to do the same with our CUC
I've got spaghetti worms. Less horrifying than bristle worms, and no stinging. Anything on the bottom gets picked up by them. I picture cuc as being more like environmental diversification. Different animals in different niches. Fish, crabs, worms, snails, copepods, bacteria.
They'll definitely consume some to build their shells as they grow, but since they don't grow that quickly, they don't consume very much. Even so, it's important to test for calcium and alkalinity to ensure that you're providing stable levels for your livestock 🙂
******Depends on tank. In a nano, your big herbivores are a no-go. I find that my best fish for eating algae are the Rainford's goby, Tailspot Blenny and the flame tail blenny. However, None of these guys are as effective as a tang so my primary clean up crew, by far, is still snails (3 sand tiger conches, 15-20 asterinas, and a handful of cerith snails) and a tuxedo urchin. Note that I feed a ton, so I wouldn't recommend 3 sand tiger conches to anyone. I've had mine for 2 years, but most nano tanks would only be able to support 1 as long as you feed enough (note I have a 20g AIO from waterbox).
I run pretty high nutrients and have no visible algae aside from film algae that grows on the glass.
I started my tank with 10 trochus from algae barn and it turned into 300 plus in maybe 8 months. By far the single best purchase I’ve made for my reef.
Can they overpopulate the tank?
@@richardbinkley8487 no
I like that you bring up crabs and snails starving. I've actually been slowly adding my CUC to attempt to prevent that. I figure I can add a couple every week or so until they start to keep up with the algae growth. That way I don't end up starving them. I figure we add other livestock slowly so why wouldn't we want to do the same with our CUC
You guys are so much more than snails and crabs!
I've got spaghetti worms. Less horrifying than bristle worms, and no stinging. Anything on the bottom gets picked up by them. I picture cuc as being more like environmental diversification. Different animals in different niches. Fish, crabs, worms, snails, copepods, bacteria.
Assuming you don’t recommend putting in a small juvenile tang in biocube?
I have those snails and they breaded and I have a lot of babies in my tank
i believe snails will compete wit corals for calcium
They'll definitely consume some to build their shells as they grow, but since they don't grow that quickly, they don't consume very much. Even so, it's important to test for calcium and alkalinity to ensure that you're providing stable levels for your livestock 🙂
@@BRStv thanx for the info
I had an urchin eat a scolly
Oh no!
Too much of rubish talk