Turbo Snails Or Live Rock?

I wanted turbo snails to make it through the brown algae phase, but I am now realizing every live rock I get with lots of life they chomp through and when there done it looks like base rock. I've had it with these guy's, as there latest victim was a peice with lots of green algae and what looked like baby feather dusters, and they even seem to be eating my coraline algae. With the price of live rock i'll put up with some brown algae which i'm almost done with anyway. I started puting the turbo's in my sump and fuge to stop them from destroying my live rock. My question is will the turbo's eat my chaeto one, and is there any other benifit to them being in my main tank other then keeping algae down, if not they will be gone soon?

 

Unfortunately it sounds like you're buying crap live rock. Turbo snails are not going to destroy liverock. They will not eat featherdusters, they will not eat long tufts of algae, they will not eat coralline algae.

If when they pass through an area the rock looks like base it probably was to begin with and they're just cleaning up the undesirable algae coating it.

They can only eat an algae when it's short and very close to the rock. They can't eat long strands or tufts of algae. Coralline is calcerous. They won't eat that either.

Here's was great liverock would look like.



There isn't a single thing on those rocks that I could see a turbo snail actually eating or destroying.

If you're life is disappearing I would look harder at water quality, lighting, or other similar issues.

Good luck.

 

+2
I thought it strange to hear about a Turbo snail destroying live rock also.

J