carbasaurus
Active Member
I no longer stock turbos in my tank as they do seem prone to short life spans. I don’t think it’s a food issue as I have other snail species that fare quite well in my tanks (ceriths, trochus, fighting conches, money cowries, and freebie stomatella “volunteers”).
If they are harvested from Mexican Pacific waters I think it’s probably a temperature issue. The Eastern Pacific is relatively cold. The only coral reefs on the west coast of North or South America are in a very small zone in the Sea of Cortez between La Paz and Cabo. These are very isolated patch reefs. You have to head west, way out into the Pacific to Clipperton Island in order to find your closest real coral reef. It makes sense to me that Pacific harvested Turbos are not well adapted to our warm reef systems (similar to Catalina Gobies)
For my money, trochus snails are a much better bet. They are good grazers, seem to be ignored by small hermit crabs and will even reproduce in the tank in the right conditions (mine have). Money cowries are great too if you can find them (great hair algae eaters and hermits ignore them)
If they are harvested from Mexican Pacific waters I think it’s probably a temperature issue. The Eastern Pacific is relatively cold. The only coral reefs on the west coast of North or South America are in a very small zone in the Sea of Cortez between La Paz and Cabo. These are very isolated patch reefs. You have to head west, way out into the Pacific to Clipperton Island in order to find your closest real coral reef. It makes sense to me that Pacific harvested Turbos are not well adapted to our warm reef systems (similar to Catalina Gobies)
For my money, trochus snails are a much better bet. They are good grazers, seem to be ignored by small hermit crabs and will even reproduce in the tank in the right conditions (mine have). Money cowries are great too if you can find them (great hair algae eaters and hermits ignore them)
