Bad snail

[Dragonwolf]

I got a large turbo snail as a hitchhiker on a star polyp...Great I thought...a freebie, so I left him in the tank. a few weeks later I started noticing empty snail shells and hermit crab shells on the bottom of the tank, I few days later I saw him trap and eat a bumblebee snail on the live rock--no way!!!!! He's on his way to the landfill now. Has anyone ever heard of this, he was quite large and half my nassarius snails are GONE.

[Skurvey Dog]

Hello Dragonwolf. (Interesting name. :D ) I have never heard of a turbo snail eating anything other than algae and film as I understand that they are reef safe. Are you sure it is in fact a turbo snail? What type of turbo did you get? An Astrea? I say this because there are alot of snail/fish look alikes out there being sold in your LFS as the "real thing". My own personal experience with this comes to mind when I purchased what I thought was a very large Mexican turbo snail. I purchased 2 of them. I placed them in my DT and later looked around to find that one was actually a hermit in a turbo shell. I have watched him very closely over the last few months and he appears to be safe. Is there a posibility that perhaps you have some other species residing in the shell?

[laurabolyard]

HADsome other species! QUICK, to the landfill:rotfl:

[Skurvey Dog]

HADsome other species! QUICK, to the landfill:rotfl:

Funny how that happens. After spending a small inheritance on our tanks something like this makes an adult have a major apoplexy. Aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[Dragonwolf]

Definitely a large turbo snail--don't know what kind, he would trap his prey when they were in a hole in the rock and get them that way.

[Skurvey Dog]

Glad you got him out of there before he ate you out of house and home. :up:

[Seahorsedreams]

If it ate the snail it's something other than a turbo. I guarantee you. If it is indeed a turbo you misinturpreted what you saw.

[poppin_fresh]

Glad you got him out of there before he ate you out of house and home. :up:

Agreed... I've heard that once a rogue snail runs out of food in the tank they will escape and eat whatever and whoever they can find!

I think I saw that on MST3K?

[Seahorsedreams]

Any chance you still have the shell?

[PhotoJohn]

i wish it was still alive...sounds like an interesting creature