Opinions on Olive Snails?

I let one of my LFSs talk me into buying 2 Olive snails the other day and I think I may have made a mistake with them. Been reading some bad stuff about them and was wondering if anyone has any first hand experience with these guys.

My main concern is that they are wiping out my sand bed and pod population. My wife wants a mandarin BADLY so getting a good pod colony is very important to me.

I have a 55 gallon tall-ish hex tank, so the sand bed is probably a bit smaller than a rectangular tank.

Thanks all

 

snails wont wipe out you pod population.
maybe you sand bed, but i don't think you have to worry about 2 only

 

I suspect they won't wipe out your sandbed fauna. They are mainly attracted to carrion, but they'll kill and eat other snails in your tank. I kept several species at different times. One of them killed every small Strombus in my tank, one a day, until he had wiped them out. I had seven or eight conchs in the tank at the time. I actually witnessed him chasing them down and catching them with the front part of his foot, then taking them under the rubble to suffocate and eat them. He even grabbed a Strombus (Conomurex) luhuanus that was almost twice his size and tried to take him under, too. The conch managed to kick loose and survived until I removed the Olive.

Cheers,




Don