Snails to avoid

[DeepSea]

I found this good article about snails to avoid on reef cleaners.org and thought I would share it everyone.

 

Bad Snails

Each week we get custom clean up crew inquiries from many of our site's visitors. We have noticed that a good amount of them have non-reef safe members of their clean up crew, and we thought it would be helpful to start a list of those snails here, to help prevent people from making mistakes. Others simply have snails that shouldn't be in a reef tank because they are colder water or temperate species, or because they get too large.

 

 

Flamingo Tongue- A beautiful snail that feeds solely on gorgonians.

Bumble Bee Snail - Sold as a sand stirrer, it eats the micro fauna in your sand that makes it livesand.

Murex Snails - All of the snails in this family are predatory, and will feed on herbivorous snails, leaving your tank with algae.

Ilynassa Obsoleta- a big seller on Ebay, as their colonies blanket the coasts of temperate shores. They are a colder water snail that scavenges and eats other snails and bivalves. They are also cannibalistic.

 

Margarita Snails - this very popular snail's range does not extend into the tropics, and they will be stressed in normal reef tanks, because they are not built to tolerate reef temperatures. A good snail though if your tank rarely goes above 70 degrees. They are excellent algaes cleaners in a temperate tank, and a favorite among many hobbyists.

 

Crown Conchs - A predatory snail that will eat other herbivorous snails, leaving your tank with algae. They are also cannibalistic.

 

Queen Conchs- these herbivorous snails are great at first, but when they become close to 12 inches long, 4 inches tall, and 5 inches wide, they are just too big for most tanks, as they need a large amount of sandy area to survive.

Keyhole Limpets- Not all limpets are the same. Owning a limpet si like owning a snail, the species really matters. Many of the keyhole limpets are known predators, some of which feast on SPS coral.If you keep coral, only keep species limpets who are herbivorous.

Olive Snails- These snails have been popping up in the hobby, and it is a shame. They are predatory, and use a hardened "harpoon" on their front probe to attack and kill bivalves and other snails. When they can't find a live meal they will feed on micro fauna and scavenge.

[Rocket]

Bump for this great article.

[bodythief]

What about those ninja star looking snails? my lfs said they are a type of astrea snail but i didn't want to risk it are those reef safe?

[lakshwadeep]

Those are harmless. Astraea comes from the Latin word for "star", and many snails from the subfamily Astraeinae look like ninja stars (Astraea is just one genus):

http://www.gastropods.com/Taxon_pages/Fami...ASTRAEINAE.html