Turbo snails causing havoc

JohnSt22 · 07-07-2006, 06:48 AM

I have heard that you need a certain number of turbos and astrea snails to keep a saltwater tank clean. I have a 20 gallon reef tank and i have 12 turbo snails and 12 astrea snails. I like the astrea snails because they are small and non-destructive. I don't really like the turbo snails because they do not care what is in front of them. They knock all my carefully placed coral out of place and i constantly have to remove them off of my mushroom rocks. They seem destructive. Does anyone else have this problem and will it hurt my tank to remove half of them. I feel my live rock is aged enough and the equipment i have is well above what i need for my tank.

THANKS FOR THE HELP

jtReef · 07-07-2006, 07:04 AM

You could remove some of them and give them to the pet store or a fellow reefer. It sounds to me like you just need to secure your coral down a little better. There is special proxy glue you can use that after time will be covered with colorine algae and you would never notice the difference. I strongly recommend this because if you go on vacation a fish could knock down a coral and by the time you get home it could be dead. Better safe than sorry.

JohnSt22 · 07-07-2006, 07:42 AM

Could you fill me in on how to use this glue. Is it a difficult process or very simple? I don't want to have to remove rocks or coral to have to do this.

jtReef · 07-07-2006, 10:44 AM

I'm struggling to find a link but it is just a long green tube with white gue in the middle. You just press it together untill it is all one color and place it on the rock and around the coral. Like you would with silly puddy. It sets in about 5 min.

rickzter · 07-07-2006, 11:16 AM

IME, turbos have been really respectful of my aquascape and corals in general. Are those turbos really, really big? That might be the case, as they might tend to develop an attitude when they grow real big. I dont know, mine always cruises around corals.

JohnSt22 · 07-07-2006, 06:42 PM

Thanks for the help, i will look for that glue, in the meantime, i will have to continue to monitor my corals. And as for the turbo snails, they are not that big, but they seem aggressive.

coral reefer · 07-07-2006, 06:52 PM

You may want to try other types of snails. Turbos, especially mexican turbos can wreck havoc on coral not attached to rock work.
Margarita, Cerith and the ever popular Astrea snails make wonderful additions to a reef tank and stay small. Nassarius snails and Conch are nice as well for the benthic areas( in or near the bottom substrate) of your tank.

My2heartboys · 07-08-2006, 09:30 AM

When I had my 40 gallon tank--my best friends finally became turbo snails as I had bad hair algae on the back of my tank. You could see it moving in waves with the water it was that bad. One day I finally had it, and went and bought me I think it was six turbos. Did a wonderful job on the back wall and the hair algae all got eaten----just one problem----I did not have enough other food in the tank to support that many turbos. That was when they started running over my corals and basically making our tank look like a disaster area. I gave all of them away to local reefers but one. It does a pretty good job and does not cause a lot of disruption of the tank.

Hope this helps

Anne

APC · 07-08-2006, 10:43 AM

I am down to one turbo as well...I find them to be like a bull in a china shop. I keep one, which is manageable, the rest of my snails are astreas...good cleaners, and much less destructive