Queen or Fighting Conch?

[john f]

These "horse conchs" are showing up all over the country now.
They are NOT herbivirous strombids but are really WELKS.

Welks eat clams..................period.

Anyone who tells you his queen or fighting conch ate anything but algae does NOT have a queen or fighting conch.

The common name "conch" is what causes the problem.
I actually bought 2 of these horse conchs at my LFS. The employee told me they were herbivours and good for cleaning the sandbed.
Once in my tank I figured out they were really carnivorous welks, and returned them to my LFS asap. They actually only wanted to give me 50% credit.............pretty funny I thought. :roll: :roll:





John

 

[ChrisRD]

Strobus gigas (queen conch) and Strombus alatus (fighting conch) are not meat eaters, they are herbivores.

This link has some more information on Family Strombidae.

"Strombus gigas is commonly known as the queen conch..."
"It lives in seagrass meadows and on sandy substrate feeding on detritus, macroalgae and epiphytes."

BTW - definition of epiphytes (I had to look it up ):
A plant, such as a tropical orchid or a staghorn fern, that grows on another plant upon which it depends for mechanical support but not for nutrients. Also called aerophyte, air plant.

Sounds like SPC is right - the Queen Conch sounds like a herbivore to me. :wink:

 

[squeezix]

My fighting conch eats tons of red algea.

 

[dvb]

One of my LFS told me that fighting conchs only cleaned the sand, and queen conchs preferred the glass. My four queen conchs prefer the sand, and keep it pretty clean by the way, but will occasionally graze on the sides of my tank when the sand is pretty clean.

They have never eaten any of my corals or clam.

 

[SPC]

Posted by dvb:

One of my LFS told me that fighting conchs only cleaned the sand, and queen conchs preferred the glass.

-I wouldn't say preferred, but they will climb on the glass when they are under an inch long. But as we know they don't stay that size long.

They have never eaten any of my corals or clam.

-Be careful that they don't bite your finger :lol: .
Steve