Let's talk about cleaning crews

[TheReefGeek]

I think the recommendations for cleaner crew are WAY over stated.

I don't think hermits do anything for keeping my tank clean, but I will always have some because they are so much fun to watch, and people who see my tank for the first time just love watching the shells crawl around. I definately lose some snails to them, but oh well.

Snails definately help clean the tank, but noticable to me, only slime algae, which I have very little of because of my UV. But I do like the look of snails climbing on the front glass, so I will always keep a few.

But when it comes to sandbed, you need something to keep it sifted and clean. This could come from snails, but it can also come from sand sifting gobies.

So my cleaner crew is small, and is just to add diversity to the tank. I like to add anything to my tank that helps maintain a balanced ecossytem, and im sure they do deal with detrius and such, I wouldn't know unless I got rid of them.

Definately having a bare bottom tank would make a difference in "requiring" a cleaner crew or not, because with bare bottom you can easily keep detris under control yourself, with high enough flow and some mechanical filtration nothing will be able to settle and rot.

Hope that helps.