Cowrie Snails

Any good or should you remove them?

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Most cowries are not reef safe at all. Money cowries are safe and one other species that is not coming to my head right now.

 

hmmm my LFS owner told me it would never leave the sand, Its about 2 inches big and is brown in color. Should I take it back?

 

From your description, I doubt it's a money cowrie or a deer cowrie.

Ringed cowries sometimes are and sometimes not reef-safe.

 

I have two cowries that came as hitchikers on my carnation. If they harm the Carnation then it is not noticeable. They have never damaged anything to my knowledge nor have they even gone near any other corals. Occasionally they'll be on the glass but always end up back on the carnation. After reading about cowries, there are 100's if not more species of them and some are reef safe, some are not. I'd just keep an eye on it, or try to ID it and go from there. Here's a pic of one of mine.

 

Actually, bc219's isn't a cowry, it's an ovulid. They have very different diets. The ovulids primarily feed on soft corals and gorgonians. The true cowries are mostly omnivorous, and normally feed on algae and the microorganisms that they scrape off of the rocks. Some of them also feed on sponges (like the Cypraea cribraria in my avatar), and a few genera seem to eat sponges exclusively, although those species never make it to the hobby since they are cold-water species. Big, starving cowries (and sometimes even small, starving cowries) will start tasting of things in your tank that they wouldn't otherwise eat. Also, some species are more generalist feeders than others, and these are most likely to do well in reef tanks, but they are also more likely to taste of zoanthids or some other ornamental that you might treasure. Smaller cowries seem to be less likely to cause problems than the larger ones. Indeed, both Cypraea moneta and Cypraea annulus are known to eat hair algae, and sometimes even cyano, although I'm pretty sure cyano isn't part of the normal diet. If you have a two inch cowry, there's probably some chance it could eat something you don't want it to eat, but then again it might be perfectly safe, especially if it has plenty of grazing area (and your tank isn't too clean and algae-free). Very few cowries will spend their time on sand, with most preferring rocky areas with caves or holes to hide in. In my opinion, cowries are MOSTLY reef safe, but none of them are absolutely reef safe, given the right circumstances.

Cheers,



Don

 

Ugh, I got confused I guess. There was so much about cowries & ovulids when I was reading about them... !!! It was all so confusing!

 

i can tell you that tiger cowrie are NOT reef safe, by buddy woke up to his eating his way through a zoo patch. i have one and he has never harmed any of corals, but there is alot more algea in my tank.