Fighting conch and olive snail recommended?

[jandree22]

I stopped in the LFS yesterday in my search for a fighting conch for my diatom problem on my sandbed. He said he'd put in the order for me for next weeks shipment, but he also recommended olive snails and said they're awesome in his tank for that problem. I did a BRIEF search on them and turned up that they're questionable for reef tanks, I've even read that they will eat other snails? Any of you guys ever have experience with olive snails?

The 24 cerith snails I just added to my tank are doing ditily squat towards my diatoms on the sand. I think they only move 1" a day :roll: The turbo's I added are awesome on my LR though and I'm gonna get more of them!

 

[Anonymous]

The Diatoms will go away on their own. My Turbos and Fighting Conch do a great job of cleaning the tank.

 

[Juck]

I have 5 olive snails in my 75 and they're cool-looking but pretty boring,,, they live in the sand and come out at night to feed on any scraps they can find. I've never heard of them being snail-a-vores.

They are big snails,, and they turn over the deeper parts of the sandbed,,, but I've never seen them eat diatoms. To be honest I'd get a bunch of nassarius snails for sandbed duty.

Queen conchs do eat diatoms off the sand very well but they do it slowly,,,, get 10 or so for a 75g. They can get big but it'll be a couple of years before you have to worry about that.

 

[Anonymous]

what eats cyno of sand bed??

 

[Juck]

Queen conchs are the only thing I've ever used in my tanks that definitely eat cyano.