Bumblebee Snails - should I bring these back?

[Coelli]

I'm in the process of stocking my Biocube 29 and stopped by my LFS on the way home. So far all I have in my tank are 5 snails (astraea, turbo, and margarita) that aren't making much of a dent.

I was excited to see a ton of new, small snails they got in the past couple of days. The guy said they were bumblebee snails and great for the tank. I bought 10.

I got home, acclimated them, dropped them in, then started looking them up.. only to find they're mostly carnivorous, won't do a thing for algae, and may predate on other snails.

They were quickly retrieved and put in an acclimation box so they can't escape while I try to figure out what to do. The limpet that hitchhiked in with them is long gone.

Do I need to bring these guys back tomorrow? Bring most back and keep one or two? Any advice would be very helpful to this newbie.

 

[Calappidae]

They are only problematic to other snails IIRC. They won't hurt fish or anything.

And even then the snails they attack would have to be small in comparison.

Somebody else with more info will chime in but from what I remember when researching mine, they're pretty harmless and still haven't bothered any of my similar sized nassarius in my 125 gal.

 

[Coelli]

Thanks - I'm thinking with 10 of them in a 29 gallon tank that doesn't have much for them to eat yet (the sand was not live) the quarters might be a little too close to my other snails. I guess they are good for sifting sand though!

 

[Coelli]

One of them escaped overnight and the rest ain't talkin' on where he went. The LFS doesn't open for another 3.5 hours so hopefully they stay put until then...

 

[DgenR8]

They'll eat clams.

 

[Betta132]

I had this little half-inch bumblebee snail, looked just like a freshwater assassin snail. He hitch-hiked in and never bothered anything that I could see. Little thing had a snout like my sand snails... I think he mostly scavenged.
What do yours look like? Maybe there's two kinds of bumblebee snails.

Also, margeritas are coldwater snails and will die fairly quickly in a reef.

 

[gnasher]

+1 on the margarita snails

I have three bumble bee snails in a tank full of carnivorous snails. I know they are carnivorous, but I don't believe they are a threat to anything their own size or larger. I have never seen them attack anything, but it's possible they eat tiny gastropods like collonistas, or maybe worms. They also cannot offer much in terms of acting as clean up crew. They will eat scraps, but not enough to make a dent in leftover food. They're mostly good to look at, and they do cute things every once in a while.

I would also like to point out that they have somehow survived living with three olive snails and two tulip snails (both voracious snail predators) as tankmates over the past year. I have no idea what their secret is, maybe they taste bad, or bite, but it doesn't look like anyone is eating them any time soon!

For some reason, they like hanging out together:



And here they are munching on a dead feeder shrimp:



And to give you an idea for the kind of monsters they're living with, here's one next to the snout of one of the tulips hiding in the sand:

 

[cloak]

They'll eat clams.

I've heard that these snails will decimate the worm population in your substrate too.

 

[Coelli]

I wound up bringing them all back, including the escapee. As for the worms, wouldn't nassarius snails do the same thing? (Not that I actually have any worms in my sandbed right now...)

 

[gnasher]

I can't speak for sandbed dwelling worms, but I have tons of worms in a pile of rubble in my tank.