Clean up crew

[mburke]

HEllo
I did some agua scaping over the weekend and noticed a considerable amount of empty hermit crab/snail shells. The number of my clean up crew is also diminshed not suprisingly. I counted 15 snails and 8 hermits. Tank is very clean,65 gallon,tek- light with 6x39 watt bulbs and sump. Should I increase my cleanup crew or do you think this is just the result of the crew versus the dirt naturally balancing out? About six months ago I noticed when I fed the tank all the cleanup crew went nuts chasing the food like they were starving.
THAnks Mike

[jojo22]

If your tank is clean I would leave it alone, some if not all of the dead cleaners probably died due to lack of food.

[Reptoreef]

Or a hitch hiker... were the shells in one general area or pretty spread out?

[mburke]

They were all spread out. Plus tank has been running 18 months with only 5lbs of live rock to seed my DIY rock. So I doubt I have An unwanted hitchiker.
Mike

[graphixx]

damm hitch hikers. I was looking in my tank 2 nights ago after lights out and what did I see....................2 damm gorilla crabs. there is no way in **** I am going to be able to catch them but I figure the tank has done well this long witht them in there I guess they can stay.

[at]

It seems most of my astrea snails don't live to long. Maybe 6 months to a year. It seems if the current or a fish knocks them off the rock or glass and they land on their backs they cant flip over and they die

[greg97527]

get some nassarius snails and some cerith snails, they can right themselves and do a great job

[Gohn]

Great info. in feedback on this site. (I'm a forum virgin) and yet I am stumped. My poor hermit crabs seem to die off + it looks like holes are in some of their shells. The rest of tank - snails, tiny green crab, fish, soft coral, fan, etc. all doing sweet otherwise. Any idea if something hitched a ride to do this or ??? No other shells affected. Oh shucks, anyway - Hi all!

[graphixx]

now are they dying because your seeing their little bodies in the tank out of their shell??? the reason I ask this is because I bet 80% of the people on this forum have been fooled by a hermit crab molt of being a dead hermit. when they shed it looks EXACTLY like a dead hermit crab.

[eldiente]

I wonder if i have a hitchhiker also, I have one area in the tank where there are several astrea shells lying in a group, I've gotten up several times in the night to try and see if there is one, but have never seen one. Maybe I have a snail burial ground, kinda like the elephant burial grounds where all of the old elephants go to die, only with snails. Greg, many times I'll come up to my tank and think one of my cleaner shrimp is dead only to realize it is a molt, kinda throws ya for a second.

[shovelhead91701]

i agree with greg(graphix) if you have a gorilla crab that somehow got in there you will never catch that sucker! I have pulled out more hair trying to catch one in my 55gal than you can imagine! That tank crashed and died so i let him starve lol! I WIN!!!!!!