Leslie's Picks on CUC's

[TJL]

Lets get this new forum off to a good start (STICKY) with Leslie's what & why on effective clean-up-crews to help guide us on our decisions on which inverts are best for the job of keeping are reeftank systems clean and safe

Todd

 

[LeslieH]

Worms, of course! In fact, that's going to be my standard answer to everything. Just get rid of all those expensive corals & fish and stock your reef with as many worms as you can get. Soooo much more attractive!

The simple but probably unsatisfactory answer is that the best crew for an individual tank varies depending on what's in the tank, what's the mix of rocks/sand/livestock, what's the amount of feeding, how much manual cleaning is done, how good the filter system is, etc.

Clean-up crew is really a misnomer. The "Transformer Crew" fits better, I think. The organic debris that builds up from excrement, over-feeding, mucus sloughing off corals, deterioration, algae growth, etc., never really gets cleaned out by the animals. What's happening is that the larger components are being taken up by the CUC, passed through their digestive systems & transformed, right? As the debris is biologically processed it becomes re-available in different forms/sizes that might be more suitable for animals such as filter feeders or DOM absorbers but it's still there. Hence the need for skimmers & filters. Obviously a tank with rapid algae growth fueled by excess nutrients will need a different set of CUC members than a tank with no algae but lots of detritus among the rocks.

So let me turn your question around ---- what do you & other RF members have in your tanks? What's worked best for your particular set-up? What's been most successful and what hasn't?

 

[Krish]

...So let me turn your question around ---- what do you & other RF members have in your tanks? What's worked best for your particular set-up? What's been most successive and what hasn't?

For me, I am my own CUC I don't use sand in my tanks due to the fact that I love alot of flow (plus I feel it is easier to keep a cleaner tank this way) so that minimizes ALOT of critters I can add to my tank. Therefore, I rely on a combination of skimming, never over feeding or over stocking my tanks and very good tank maintenance/husbandry. This has worked very well for me in the past. The only inverts/critters I ever have is whatever copepods transfer into the tank with the liverock, as well as tube worms, and maybe a coral bandit shrimp and that's it.

 

[cptbjorn]

I like stomatella and collinista snails because they are more active at night and also they reproduce readily so their populations can change depending on how much algae is growing. Also I have a single blue hermit and a eunice worm that take care of any meaty foods the corals don't catch, plus a small army of bristle worms.

Only thing that hasn't worked for me is astrea snails because they can't right themselves and tend to get stuck in places, and if a big one gets stuck and dies it releases a whole lot of nitrogen in a hurry which can turn into a bad situation in small tanks.

 

[LeslieH]

The notion that a marine snail can't right itself has always puzzled me. There is absolutely no survival/evolutionary value in that.

 

[Frankie]

Hi Les,
What type of worms are available to the hobbyist to directly purchase and add to there aquariums and for what purposes?
Or do we mainly rely on what comes in on the rock and thats that?

 

[Rhodes19]

CUC has been hit or miss for me. I had a bunch of cerith snails but I think they added more to the bioload than anything. I haven't had much luck with turbo snails either, they knock over things and don't live very long. I've had some luck with nassarius, nerite, and astraea. I do have some peppermint shrimp, a coral banded shrimp (and I never see any of them) and 2 cleaner shrimp who seem to be the most active. I am curious to know what folks think of brittle stars and urchins and their compatibility with other CUC members.

 

[LeslieH]

Frankie, the worms I've occasionally seen offered for sale as CUC are cirratulids (hair worms). I'd love to hear from a dealer to know whether they're specifically targeted by collectors or are accidental by-catch or if someone is successfully breeding them. As some of the common cirratulids in tanks may reproduce by asexual fission (splitting into 2 or more sections which can all regenerate) they should be easy to propagate.

Dealers may include a variety of species under the names cerith, nassarius, nerite, astraea, and turbo so it's not too surprising when some newly purchased CUC doesn't perform as promised.

I like brittle stars. The minis and some of the larger species are good additions to a tank. They're unobtrusive, mild-mannered, and always on the job. The minis tend to be suspension feeders capturing particles out of the water - you can tell because the arms are waving up in the water. The larger ones sold in the trade tend to be deposit feeders but there are some carnivores to be avoided such as the green brittle star Ophiarachna incrassata. It really will capture & eat small fish as well as snails, worms, shrimp, and pretty much anything it can catch. Ophiarachna is fun to watch but not when it's devouring some expensive blenny.

People have mixed opinions about urchins. Again, you have to do some research & get the right kind for your problem, whether algal growth or debris build-up, and avoid the carnivores that will decimate the CUC in your sand bed or rock work. Even the best ones can knock over rocks & corals (except for rock urchins which stay in one spot) and some species, while good CUC, pick up corals & rocks as camouflage.

 

[Rhodes19]

I like brittle stars. The minis and some of the larger species are good additions to a tank. They're unobtrusive, mild-mannered, and always on the job. The minis tend to be suspension feeders capturing particles out of the water - you can tell because the arms are waving up in the water. The larger ones sold in the trade tend to be deposit feeders but there are some carnivores to be avoided such as the green brittle star Ophiarachna incrassata. It really will capture & eat small fish as well as snails, worms, shrimp, and pretty much anything it can catch. Ophiarachna is fun to watch but not when it's devouring some expensive blenny.

People have mixed opinions about urchins. Again, you have to do some research & get the right kind for your problem, whether algal growth or debris build-up, and avoid the carnivores that will decimate the CUC in your sand bed or rock work. Even the best ones can knock over rocks & corals (except for rock urchins which stay in one spot) and some species, while good CUC, pick up corals & rocks as camouflage.

Hi Leslie,

Thanks for the information, thats good to know. I'll have to check and see what our lfs carry. Don't want any fish to go missing. I think I'll hold off on the urchins for now. I like were my corals are.

 

[ReefLogic]

What is your thoughts on cucumbers and serpent starfish?

 

[LeslieH]

Serpent stars & brittles are all ophiuroids. The only difference is that the serpents have smooth or relatively smooth arms with inconspicuous spines while the brittle stars have conspicuous arm spines. What's more important is the food preference & behavior of the individual species.

Cucumbers are lovely animals, interesting to watch, and the deposit-feeders are excellent cleaners. One problem with them as a group is that they need a constant food supply & many eventually starve to death. They don't have strong tube feet (unlike their relatives the urchins) so it's not uncommon to find one in pieces in the pump intake or powerheads. All of them have toxins to some degree. Detritus-feeders tend to be relatively harmless compared to the colorful suspension feeders which is what Dexter in the other thread probably had. The link Sid posted is a great source on info on these fascinating animals. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/jan2003/invert.htm One rule of thumb Rob suggested in the article is that there shouldn't be more than 3" of cuke to every 20 gallons, and even then, only if you have a well established sand bed to feed it.

 

[ReefLogic]

awesome....thanks for sharing. I have 2 tiger tails in a 60 cube and have never had an issue. It was one that split....then split again but I found the third a new home.

 

[TJL]

Hey Leslie, thank you so much for keeping this thread alive, interesting and informative. Hopefully mods will make it a STICKY as CUC's are a very important part of a stable reeftank and no real one size fits all approach will work for everyones systems. So you're just the right person to help us sort it all out.
You are correct in the cucumber in question in Brendon's (Dexter)tank being a 'Sea Apple' suspension feeding species and not a substrate feeder. I have the common Yellow Cucumber from Florida and has/does a wonderful job in keeping the substrate clean without posing much of a threat toxin wise.

Thanks again, Todd

 

[NanoReefer411]

I have a tigertail in my 180. It doesn't come out that I have seen. It is always in a rock whenever I look in the tank. =/ Did I get unlucky?

 

[bigblue141]

I like to use lots of zebra, lefty, and mini FL blue legged hermits.

I also have numerous mini brittle stars and 4-5 big black brittle stars from Hawaii.

I have a numerous snails, although whatever the ones with the cone shell are have fell victims to hermits/sally light foot/CBB

I have an assortment of bristle worms, worms that build holes out of sand, the worms the shoot out a spider web, and tons of minature little feather dusters. I also have a big (+6") sand sifting star that's going to be 2 years old in captivity in March.