Clean-Up Crew Guide: Building the Right Team

Your Tank's Unpaid Workforce

Every reef tank needs a clean-up crew — invertebrates that eat algae, scavenge leftover food, and turn over the sandbed. A good CUC isn't glamorous, but it's essential.

Cleaner Shrimp

The star of the CUC. Pacific cleaners set up cleaning stations where fish queue up to be groomed. Hardy, easy to keep, and they'll eat anything. Drip acclimate them slowly (they're sensitive to salinity changes) and avoid keeping them with shrimp predators like hawkfish or larger wrasses.

Peppermint Shrimp

These exist for one reason: aiptasia. Three or four peppermints will hunt down and eat pest anemones. Make sure to get actual Peppermint Shrimp — other species look similar but don't reliably eat aiptasia.

Snails — The Backbone of the CUC

Turbo Snails — powerful algae grazers that mow through film algae and diatoms. Clumsy though — they'll knock over frags and can't right themselves if they fall.

Trochus/Top Snails — similar grazing ability to turbos but more coordinated. They can right themselves, live longer, and are generally considered the better long-term choice.

Nassarius Snails — sand-dwellers that stay buried until they smell food, then erupt to scavenge. Essential for any tank with a sandbed.

Cerith Snails — smaller general-purpose grazers that handle crevices turbos can't reach. Also burrow into sand.

Hermit Crabs

Dwarf Blue Legs — tiny, active algae and detritus eaters. Keep a stash of empty shells in the tank so they have upgrade options — this reduces snail casualties.

Scarlet Reef Hermits — slightly bigger, very good grazers, generally well-behaved.

Avoid large hermit crab species. They get aggressive and some become predatory.

How Many?

A starting guideline: 1 snail per 8–10 litres, 1 hermit per 15–20 litres. Start with fewer and add more if needed. Overstocking the CUC means half of them starve once algae is under control.

Acclimation

Invertebrates are more sensitive to parameter changes than fish. Always drip acclimate over 30–60 minutes.

Browse clean-up crew invertebrates from UK sellers — some sellers offer starter CUC packs, which are great for new tanks.