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Originally Posted by Little Luey Does anyone else think of the clean up crew as a necesary evil?
It is very different for me to loose a fish compared to lossing a snail/crab, why does it seem that unimportant? |
Personally, I don't like the term "Clean Up Crew" at all. I believe they are good scavengers but they don't really clean the tank, merely recycle stuff that needs to be removed from the tank. Because this is a closed system, nothing, and I mean nothing can replace good regular tank maintenance. Snails eat algae, they don't clean it out of the tank. Hermits eat left over food but don't remove it from the tank. All these animals ADD to the bio-load in the tank and they add to the necessity to properly CLEAN the tank not recycle the nutrients already in it.
I personally would prefer the snails, starfish, crabs, worms, feather dusters, etc as a scavenger crew so people don't get them confused with them actually cleaning the tank.
Do I think they are necessary to have in a tank, the answer is a simple "No." Do I use them, yes because I like the look of the snails and my tank can provide enough food for the ones I have. However I don't rely on them to clean anything, nor do I think they do a great job keeping algae at bay or anything like that. I just like the look of the snail trails through the bit of green algae that I allow to grow on the side glass for them.