I feel stupid....

I like to mix Cerith, Astrea, Nassarius...they all serve there purpose...I also like to add things like serpent stars, urchins, even a few small hermits...thinks that make quick work of excess food not just algae...I actually never use Turbos any more as they tend to be too big and cumbersome and knock too much stuff off.

I only keep about 20-30 snails total in my 125...I really think 1 per 3-5 gallons or so is plenty.

You have to remember most of the formulas for calculating a CUC were conceived by the folks selling the CUC. When you add large number of CUC you generally end up with many of them either killing each other through predation, or slowly starving.

 

My mantis gets the hermits, i hate nerites, and i only have one type of algae problem so this is what my LFS reccomended (5 ceriths) but seeing as they always are burried under the sand, i figured more will have odds of coming up out of the sand. astreas tend to stay on the rocks IMO, and nassies aren't algae eaters, and probably would be picked up by the mantis. also the mantis pretty much owns any food on the sand bed so extra food isnt a worry.