Mollusk of the Week (Astraea tecta) Astrea snails and relatives

herefishiefishie

Premium Member
Every week I will be posting a new mollusk for discussion. Please post everything you know about this week's mollusk, to include pics, care and feeding habits, optimal environment, common names, and anything else you can think of.

There are several snails that are often confused with this week's snail, so I would like this thread to include a dialog on this species and some of its synonyms or near-synonyms. These snails are your typical, popular reef janitors.

These are the usual suspects:

  • turbo
  • Lithopoma
  • Astraea
  • Trochus

Let's have a discussion of these excellent, helpful reef janitors.
 
My snails were purchased as Astrea snails. The shells start out as pearly white before becoming covered in algae. The spiral grows straight up. I really like these guys. They can flip themselves over and eat lots of algae. Mostly diatoms but some hair if it's short enough. They are also pretty fast growers, having doubled in size in about 6 months.

1.024-1.026 SG and 78-82 degrees F seems to work well for them. They have a tendency to stick exclusivly to the glass once they get on it, but it's easy enough to pick them off and put them back on the rocks when needed.
 
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