Conch eating Astrea Snails ??

[chrisguy]

I go through Astrea snails like crazy. I've always thought that it was the hitchhiker crabs and/or the blue leg crabs in my tank.

From the URS frag swap on Saturday I bought another batch of snails. Today I confirmed what I thought I was seeing on Sat - Mon. My Conch (sold as a crown, but might be a queen) is actively climbing the rock work, getting on top of the snail and then slowly sucking it out of the shell. I have pulled 3 snails from it in the past 24 hours.

The conch was the last suspect in the tank. Have others had this issue?

I am going to remove the conch and replace it with more nassarius snails to keep the sand bed stirred.

 

[Teraphage]

Can you post a picture of your conch...there's many predatory types out there. A queen or fighting conch definately wouldn't be eating your other snails (their mouth is inappropriate) but most others like horse conchs are carnivorous.

 

[Namyar]

I have both in my tank and they do not eat my snails

 

[chrisguy]

Pictures below.

 

[Stephany]

I looked at this website, and it had a decent amt of pictures, but they don't enlarge enough. See any that are similar?
http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/dailard/snailtrail/mugshots.html

Real hard seeing the striping on your snail. I wouldn't touch it though. The following (same website) has descriptions of how they hunt as well.

http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/dailard/snailtrail/casebook.html
These

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

It's a Crown Conch. They eat other mollusks.

 

[ri]

I had a decent sized Queen Conch in my 180 for several years... did not seem to bother any other living critter in the tank.

ri

 

[scaz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7425824#post7425824 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gary Majchrzak
It's a Crown Conch. They eat other mollusks.

Thats why you want to do your research on any thing before you put it into your tank.