A clean fish tank is a very satisfying sight and keeping it this way takes a multi-pronged approach. You need to keep up on the water changes and filter maintenance and physical cleaning is a job you can't neglect either. Luckily, there is a wide variety of critters who can help with this last one and are (in our opinion) a vital part of keeping that tank in tip top shape. To this end, we suggest leaning on more than one type of cleaner, as you always have more than one kind of mess to clean up. Without further ado let's get into a few key groups of them.
Starting with snails is usually the best way to go. Most snails have specific jobs, and some are better shaped than others to get at specific portions of the tank. We love Sandsifting Periscope snails for their appetite for detritus and left over food. Their ability to turn over and oxygenate substrate is a super convenient extra benefit, if you don't have substrate, you can leave these out. They do best when you see them the least; most of their day is spent under the sand burrowing along with just a periscope visible. They'll pop up out of the sand like a submarine surfacing when they smell food in the water. If you're looking for algae cleaning snails, try things like Turbo and Trochus Snails. For getting into the small nooks and crannies of your rockwork, try adding smaller snails like Bumblebee and Cerith. All of these are reef safe, though there are some reports out there of Periscope snails munching on sand bed corals, we've not witnessed this in person. Snails have relatively short lives, less than a year or two in most cases, so be prepared to replace them from time to time.
There are lots of aquarium friendly crabs to choose from, and the staff favorite here is always Emerald Crabs. These little green (sometimes brown and even red) crabs are one of the few critters that will eat the dreaded bubble algae, but they'll also eat detritus and filamentous algae. They are super hardy and reef safe. They'll happily eat the Nutramar Algae and Color Boost Shots as a supplemental food. Arrow crabs are excellent algae eaters, but are not reef safe, as they are equal opportunity feeders and will chow most things that they can dismantle. Decorator crabs are an amazing addition to fish only tanks and will pick up a wide variety of things and glue them to their backs, including corals, algae, sand, rocks, and occasionally, even snails! We've seen them kept in polyp heavy tanks where they do minimal damage to large colonies of things like Zoanthids (which are both super cool on their backs,) but we still do not recommend them for reef style aquariums. Click here to learn more
Starting with snails is usually the best way to go. Most snails have specific jobs, and some are better shaped than others to get at specific portions of the tank. We love Sandsifting Periscope snails for their appetite for detritus and left over food. Their ability to turn over and oxygenate substrate is a super convenient extra benefit, if you don't have substrate, you can leave these out. They do best when you see them the least; most of their day is spent under the sand burrowing along with just a periscope visible. They'll pop up out of the sand like a submarine surfacing when they smell food in the water. If you're looking for algae cleaning snails, try things like Turbo and Trochus Snails. For getting into the small nooks and crannies of your rockwork, try adding smaller snails like Bumblebee and Cerith. All of these are reef safe, though there are some reports out there of Periscope snails munching on sand bed corals, we've not witnessed this in person. Snails have relatively short lives, less than a year or two in most cases, so be prepared to replace them from time to time.
There are lots of aquarium friendly crabs to choose from, and the staff favorite here is always Emerald Crabs. These little green (sometimes brown and even red) crabs are one of the few critters that will eat the dreaded bubble algae, but they'll also eat detritus and filamentous algae. They are super hardy and reef safe. They'll happily eat the Nutramar Algae and Color Boost Shots as a supplemental food. Arrow crabs are excellent algae eaters, but are not reef safe, as they are equal opportunity feeders and will chow most things that they can dismantle. Decorator crabs are an amazing addition to fish only tanks and will pick up a wide variety of things and glue them to their backs, including corals, algae, sand, rocks, and occasionally, even snails! We've seen them kept in polyp heavy tanks where they do minimal damage to large colonies of things like Zoanthids (which are both super cool on their backs,) but we still do not recommend them for reef style aquariums. Click here to learn more
