turbo snails pissing me off

well, I had bought a large beautiful chunk of live rock, selected due to already being covered massively with purple, pink, and a few other colors of coraline algae.

Got up this morning to find half that rock white again while my turbo snails are just munching away at it. I didn't know they ate coraline.

I knocked them off (carefully) with the net, since there's lots of yummy brownish algae for them to eat elsewhere.

Guess it would be a bad idea to use a cattle-prod in an aquarium? LOL

 

haha i had a similar experience with a piece of "plant rock" for such small animals it's amazing how much a snail can eat! instead of the cattle prod how about an electric dog fence? that should learn em real quick

 

true enough, but it's just trying to get them snails to hold still and not go back in their shells while you try to get that shock collar around their necks

 

lol..

 

I would just dump the turbos, I don't like them. They are also known to mow over corals and shift your rocks if they run into a rock that isn't placed very solid. They aren't worth it to me unless you have a huge hair algae problem... plenty of other great snails to choose from!

 

Mine don't seem to eat coraline? They are very clumsy though. I have a different problem. I'm trying to fugure out how to keep my striped hermits from killing the turbos for their shells. I've added nice big empty shells for them, but hasn't stoppped the home-invasions.

 

that's what's driving me crazy....not all species act the same in different environments....like some people's fish destroy corals, and other people say theirs (same kind) dont.

I thankfully don't have a hair algae problem, but I have TONS of brown that springs up because the 10 smaller snails I have aren't keeping up.

 

first off the mexican turbo doe's not eat coraline algae,
but they can be a menace by knocking things over and such.

Your coraline algae "turning white" means it was some die off , if your tank parameters are correct it will grow back.
I my self only have 2 of them , they do a great job of taking care of the glass.
I have sevral other little snails that do a great job at keeping it down.

if you have ALOT of brown algae, there can be a few reasons why you gave it.
1,lights on for too long, ( try 8 hours )
2,bulbs that are to old and lost their spectrum ( no more than 12 months old , and thats pushing it ).

 

those are good ideas to help me eliminate the problem.

only what I meant by the rock being half white was that it is white Fiji rock with coraline all over it. I actually saw the snails eating a trail across it leaving it white where they had just been.

I probably need to post a pic of the snails so I am sure that they are acutally turbo snails. Maybe you can fix me on that.

 

Ive never know of a mexican turbo eating coraline/s
and the white parts ( bleached white like ) ? that was most likely the snail eating brown and "grazing" for any thing of value.
They may be a little bulldozer but it's good to have a couple/few to help control algae.
Take some pics and show us the snails.