Conch

Does anyone kept this snail
Before?

 

I have a fighting conch,not harmful to fish or other inverts,good cuc member.I don't see it much in daytime as it stays hidden most of the time.

 

We've kept 3 species of conchs in the past...which one are you considering?

 

Not sure what one is the best one ?

 

I have a great tiger conch, he did eat my condy though, but he is great to watch

 

It kinda depends on what you want the conch for as to which one you'd choose. For instance, fighting conchs (Strombus pugilis) require open substrate, and are great cleaners, but can only reach as high as their proboscis (they can't climb, but do bury themselves in the substrate). I've even had them eat cyano.

Queen conchs (S. gigas) get large (12" in the wild), but are fairly slow-growers. Oddly enuff they CAN climb, but are darned clumsy.

We have also kept toothed conchs (S. dentatus), which are nice-looking, but never thrived for us.

HTH

 

Cheers for the info. I have some coral on my sand. So should I rule them all out ?

 

If you have some open substrate, fighting conchs are pretty nice critters. They won't bulldoze your tank, and will keep your substrate will also clean about the lower 2" of anything else (they need to be able to reach it since they can't climb). I'd be thinking 2 sq' of total open substrate per conch in that case.

 

Thanks for the info. I think I'll get one fighting conch. What algae do they eat ?

 

IME, they'll eat pretty much anything they can reach, except hair algae. They LOVE diatoms, I've even had them eat small patches of cyano. One thing about these snails is sometimes, ours would disappear for awhile (in the substrate), but show back up later.