Cowry & Seagrass

[Goibot]

I can remeber when I was diving in the South Pacific seeing a bunch of different types of cowry. These are snail like critters but they have a mantle (kind of like a clams) that will come out and cover their entire shell. They can be very beautiful. I don't think I have seen any of these in LFS nor in individual tanks.

Are these comonly kept in home aquariums?

Also Seagrasses; I have seen beds of these normaly in between reefs or on the leeward side of shallow reefs.

Why are these not used in aquascapes?

Here is a picture of a cowry

 

[just dave]

Cowries can pose problems in aquariums. Their size makes and strength allows them to push over unsecured corals, inverts, rocks. Some may eat on certain corals. It also may be difficult providing a large one enough to eat.The smaller ones like the Money cowry and the Gold-Line cowry are commonly seen for sale and their size and dietary habits keep them from posing problems.
I have Gold-lines in my aquariums.

Sea grasses are plants and unlike the algae that is commonly seen and sold in the hobby they have certain substrate needs and flow needs that are not often compatible with reef aquariums( as they are commonly kept.) There are people that have sea-grass tanks and you should go over to the Marine Plants forum and check them out.

 

[Goibot]

Thanks for the info Dave - I'll have to pay a bit more attention to what is in your tanks next trip in town.

BTW Vol 1 is awesome. It is exactly what I was looking for thanks.
Tracy