Ok, let me address a few things first...
1. I have anthias, so I will be using an autofeeder, probably two so there will not be a small concentration of food in one area to make the fish compete. Other than that, they get supplemental feeding of frozen food, and because of the tangs, they have a constant supply of seaweed. Between my tangs, my sand sifter and the hermits that I have, all the pellets get cleaned up in time for the next feeding. A few that do not sink do go into the fuge, where it feeds my fuge monster.
2. I've always called them CUC, however, I do not rely on said animals to do the work that I should do. I keep my rocks blown off of detritus, I'll stir up my sand bed every once in a while and my between my kole tang's kisses and my hammerhead mag float, my class is for the most part, clean. But the more variety I put in the tank, is more interesting and fun for kids like my niece, who loves watching the hermit crabs, the little nassarius snorkels in the sand, the emerald crabs on the rocks, and the snails on the glass. Which leads me into my next question perfectly.
I now have 14 astrea snails... I've had all of these since they were itty bitty snails, who are now the size of a 50 cent piece. I've never once flipped any of them over, but have knocked them off the glass with the mag float more times than I care to count, and watched them many a times right them selves, then get right back on to the glass. I'm not sure why they have such a bad rap, but I've never had an issue with them. I added extra snail shells in the tank for the hermits so they wouldn't pick on the snails, and left it at that. But now that I know about the black foot trochus, I'm interested in adding more of those since they seem to be more active during the day, whereas the astreas are more active during the night.
And I do plan on having a 2 inch sand bed, because I have fish like a sand sifter, and the melanurus wrasse, and a seeing eye goby with his pistol shrimp, and all three mentioned needs a sand bed. I keep nassarius on hand to keep from the sand from sitting and building up in nitrates in between the times that I stir up the sand bed.
And Baja hermits DO eat and maintain populations of hair algae, I've seen it in the frag tank at Aqua Exotic. Matt F. had a huge hair algae problem in his two tanks, and handfuls of the Baja hermit crabs later, it was gone. After it was gone, he added a yellow eye kole, and between the hermits and the kole, he hasn't had an issue since. He's now working on his other tank, giving it the same treatment. I haven't been there in a while, but I'll be sure to check it out but I'll make sure to post it on here next time we go there. I need more Ocean Nutrition, so I'll probably be going tomorrow.
So that being said, if there is any other advice you can think of to give, please feel free to give it. I do have an idea of what I want, but I am still unsure of the numbers.
And once again, let me politely remind all of you, especially you Dan, that the problem of the forum has been noted and will be dealt with accordingly. I asked for help with a CUC, and I don't feel like I should have to read through complaining posts about the formatting of the forum when it's easy to use < p > or < p/ > at the beginning and end of each paragraph if you want breaks in what you say. Hopefully the ones that I used show up, if not, either way, where as it may bug me, I'm not going to harp on Denzil to fix it because he's busy, and the company is getting ready to go into their busy season. So, I understand it sucks, but please Dan, keep your snarky comments to yourself, or post them on your own threads. Thanks.