Turbo snails suck....

[ryebread]

I don't know if it is just my luck or do mexican turbo snails suck? These things always fall off of the glass onto thier shell and can't flip themselves back over. If I don't find them and rescue them from thier own stupidity.....they die. They will either get eaten by crabs or starfish or shrimp. Does this happen to anyone else? What can I do?

 

[tjkohler]

Turbos are pretty bad at that. I've found that they have a pretty good survival rate if you acclimate well then hand feed seaweed to them at the beginning. They get strong and then don't fall off .

 

[jonthefb]

you guys gotta remember though that this isnt their natural habitat, they dont have to worry about falling off pieces of glass in the wild!
good luck
jon

 

[fshhub]

There is no scientific proof of this, that I know of. But I have heard taht the salinity has a small part here, higher salinity seems to help better, and sinc3e we have raised an kept ours up about 1.025, then we seem to have lost almost none and this is in several months now. After seeing this, we had set up a tank at work and done the same and have only lost 1 since March(or was it april).
Another thing, we also get TROCHUS snails, which can upright themselves and eat mroe than turbos. But are harder to find and a little more expensive. YOu could try some of them, if you have no other luck with turbos.
Thery are easy to spot, they are black bodied instead of white, but most lfs's dont know and may try to sell them either way(trochusas turbos and vice/versa).

 

[tusken]

Mexican Turbos need colder water, they will die in a short time in a normal reef tank.
I made the same mistake buying them.
I have some Turbos (not mexican) and they never fall off anything.

 

[jonthefb]

id have to agree with fshhub in that trochus snails, although mroe expensive, do a heck of a lot better cleaning. plus they can right themselves if they fall down. while were on this topic, does anyone know the average life span of these guys?
goodluck
jon

 

[iechy]

fshub- my salinity is about the same as yours and I have had no problems with any of my snails either. I have turbos, margaritas, nassarius, bumblebee, and astreas and haven't lost one yet and only had to flip one back over once. Maybe this will lend support to your theory. Please site me as a reference when you publish this theory in a scientific journal

 

[spongebobsquarepants]

The only bad thing about Trochus snails is they are underwater tanks......they plow over anything in their path....I have a few feather dusters that are always getting uprooted from their spots by these tanks. They are awesome algea eaters though!

 

[sistrmary]

Wait wait wait...your snails go on your glass? *sighs* My snails are all defective. Love the rock...only use the glass as a leap-frog over my massive Colt Coral. (In a 100gal tank it takes up half of it.)

 

[slothy]

ya my snails are retarded too... like getting stuck in the power head once a day..... my conch does more glass cleaning then they do lol

 

[fshhub]

spongebob, I hate to say it but, either you are talkingabout a completely different snail or you have been sold something other than what you thought you were buying, B/C trochusare like turbos,a nd I have never seen one on the sand for more than a very short time, let alone in the sand. They do go all over the rock(which turbos do not) and the glass. And we have hundreds of cluster dusters(little dusters) which have never once been bothered by ours.
Are you sure we are talkinga bout the same thing? Trochus look just like turbos and are abotu the same size(maybe larger). Except the trochus have black bodies insteqad of white. Other than that, they are nearly identical.

 

[spongebobsquarepants]

fshhub.....Actually I bought them through SWF......SWF calls them Mexican or Trochus......they are very different from the Astrea turbos in size and shape. The ones they sent me are at least an inch in dia or larger, where as the turbos are usually around 1/2" The shells are more of a spiral and the turbos are more triangular in shape. The pictures in the invert section of SWF.com show the diff. The alleged trochus I have pretty much go everywhere including the sand. Every morning I can see several paths through the sand where they have gone. They are raising havoc with my three large feather dusters by either knocking them over or latching on to them. In my previous post I mentioned they where tank like......and that is pretty accurate. Dont get me wrong......I like them as far as algae control.....but I am constantly reattaching my thermometer probe, seaweed clip and of course the feather duster problem