I have a 120 with 3 Turbo snails, 6 or 8 Astrea snails, 2 Ceriths and 2 Nassarius. Also a bunch of the Stomatella type snails that came in on the live rock.

This is a lot less than I have normally seen recommended for a clean up crew, the normal recommendations seem excessive to me.

On a related not does anyone know if the "Red Banded Turbo Snails" sold at Ocean Aquatics are the same as the "Trochus Snails" which come highly recommended?

wow i have about 35 hermits in my 55 with a wack of snails AND a large green star. All live like a happy little family :)

No real amout of loss from any of them.

There is always the rule breaker :D

I've found that 1 snail per 4 gallons usually does the trick for me. My theory is that the much higher recommendations are historical ... based on when standard tanks didn't have live rock.

I've generally had good success with combined snails and hermits, but am planning to go hermit-less for the 375 gallon FOWLR.

I have 5 blue legs, 8 trochus snails, 1 emerald crab and I have 5 ceirth, 5 nass. snails and a cleaner shrimp coming all in a 20 gal :eek:
I think I may have to through in some aglae waffers so no one starves.

get both snails and hermits, snails disapear just as fast if you have hermits as they do it you don't.

I think J&L's numbers of hermits is way to much though

for you I would sugest maybe 30 hermits (bluelegged only) and 75 of each cerith and astra and 20 turbos. If we could get trocus anywhere that would be cool, but I never see them.

Steve

One sea hare would do the trick for that tank. I have one in my 120 and there is no alge any where and he eats it all including cyno :eek:

cyno isn't algae. it's a bacteria.

I have both tonnes of snails as well as hermits....blue legged, scarlets, electric blue, margarita, astrea, turbo..1 emerald crab, 2 black brittle star, 3 serpant stars and a 2 1/2' long black knobby cucumber....never had a problem with any of them. The only crabs which caused a problem were what J&L call Left Handed Hermit Crabs (LFS called them zebra crabs)...they did a number on both crabs and snails even with plenty of empty shells...allthough I seem to be the exception to the rule cause I also used to have 2 large green brittle stars with no problems and I have a pair of tomato clowns which host and spawn in a condylactis anemone (condylactis gigantea).

Oops I was thinking of that terable red fuzzy alge like in this pic
http://www3.telus.net/public/dabbler...llon%20004.jpg
Its that red junk in the Zoos My Sea Hare just cleaned it all out. I couldn't find anything that would eat that stuff and lucked out with him

Mexican turbos will make short work of that, you can get them at J&L. my whole tank was that and 15 turbos made it disapear in about 4 weeks.

Steve