Mexican turbo snails are Turbo fluctuosa, they occur in the Easter Pacific in areas such as the Baja peninsula of California. Most are supposed collected in Mexico. To put things into perspective, the lows in the gulf of California is 61 Fahrenheit and the highs being 75 Fahrenheit - which isn't even the average temperature reefers keep it at which is usually 78 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. So yes, they are a temperate species. I know you said you had a bad experience with a pitho crab, but perhaps you got an old one that died early? Mine loves to eat hair algae and the stuff snails don't like. But at the same time it's kind of lazy and samples everything here and there. Also, my hermit crabs love hair algae. I also used to keep sally lightfoots in my old tank (different species but same genus as the one commonly kept in aquariums),they mow down on hair algae so it seems unfortunate yours isn't doing a good enough job. In my experience crabs in general seem to like it more than snails. Sea hares are also monsters when it comes to eating hair algae. A long time ago I had one hitchhike onto a seaweed I collected that was less than a grain of rice. A couple of months or so after that I saw a huge brown blob mowing down tons of hair algae that was at least 3 inches long. I'd be worried about them getting sucked into a powerhead and dying in a small tank though. They also can expel a purple ink that's supposed to be toxic when something tries to peck at it - I'd run carbon for that just in case. I would assume collection of them is somewhat seasonal from my experience of seeing them at beaches. At a certain time of year they'll all gather up together and mate in a fashion that makes them look like a sea hare-centipede.... very weird to see. Also there are many species of slugs considered to be sea hare, so experience may slightly very.
