Got Some Clean Up Crew

There is even an acronym for these...CUC.  Fish can be a little messy when it comes to food, and it's the cleanup crew's job to eat.

First came two peppermint shrimp.  What a pain these are!  They are nocturnal, and spend most of the day hiding behind rocks.  I only saw both shrimps during the first few days, and then there was only one. It has been a month now, and I am convinced one ate the other.  The shrimp is amazing for sniffing out food and hauling it off. Unfortunately, it has a voracious appetite. I actually need to feed it, otherwise it terrorizes other things. I have seen this shrimp pounce on some of my soft corals (torch, button, frogspawn).  I don't think I would have bought these had I known their behaviour.

Peppermint shrimp with some Red Button Polyp coral

Next came the hermit crabs.  These guys are a lot of fun. From the moment I bought them, they have been working to clean up the rocks and sand. They also eat fallen food.  I bought 4 blue, 1 white, and 1 red legged.  I am not sure how the white one ended up in the batch.  They also have a voracious appetite, and I feed these as well as the shrimp.

Hermit crabs

I soon discovered I had an algae bloom. The brownish stuff was all over the rocks, glass and sand.   So next came the snails.  I bought 2 Trochus, 7 Nassarius.  They have been doing such a great job, that I'm running out of algae.  I will need to fed them as well.  The Nassarius also keep the sand stirred, which is nice.

Trochus snail, with a torch coral and a toadstool coral

Small Nassarius snail scooting away from the crabs

Larger Nassarius snail