Turbo Sarmaticus?

Does anyone know about keeping the species Turbo Sarmaticus (or Ollycrocks or Allikreukel) in home aquaria? I only know three things about them:

1) They are picked up in tide pools Alikreukel collecting, cooking and eating - Di's Photo's - Fotopages.com
2) They are sometimes eaten,
3) They have stunningly beautiful shells:

 

I have no personal experience, but a little looking on the web gave me their size: up to 7.5cm in diameter. That's a pretty big snail! I could find no info on whether they were tropical or not, and what they eat.

I have a cousin of the Turbo Sarmaticus, mine was sold to me as a Margarita Turbo. It's now 3 inches across and occasionally knocks rocks over.

 

Hi Tristan,

These are cold-water snails from South Africa, and probably wouldn't do well in a reef tank. The snails you usually see pictured on the net have had part of the outer layers of shell polished away to reveal the pearly interior typical of the turbinids and trochids. When they are alive, the shells are usually encrusted and not all that beautiful.

Turbo (Sarmaticus) sarmaticus

There is another tropical species that is naturally pretty that you should be able to get for you reef tank. They don't get quite as large, with the typical size being two inches and a large one being three inches:

Turbo (Turbo) petholatus

Cheers,



Don

 

Thank you very much for your informative help!

I'll keep my eye out for Turbo petholatus.