Local wild-caught snails as clean-up crew

[SueAndHerZoo]

My sister lives on the beach and whenever I visit I go out and grab some snails and crabs for my tanks. I've never had a problem doing this, but I've never been brave enough to put any of the snails in my seahorse tank. I could really use a lot more snails in the pony tank - the current clean-up crew isn't keeping up, but I'm afraid to use the local snails in case it could harm my seahorses.

Thoughts? I can't believe how cold the ocean water was yesterday while I was gathering snails so I can't imagine any bacteria could lie on them, but who knows?
Sue

 

[piranhaman00]

Bacteria can survive a little cold haha

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Yeah, at least some of the bacteria will definitely survive the transition from cold to hot water.

My thoughts would be to just order new snails from a shop if for no other reason than you could pick the specific ones you want (I know a lot of people have favorite types/ones that they feel do a better job with certain types of algae).

 

[SueAndHerZoo]

Bacteria can survive a little cold haha

So that's a "no" from you?
Sue

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

Depends on where you’re from too. I had the same idea in relation to snails from Long Island NY. The thing is, a lot of those are whelks or moonsnails or other species with super predatory behaviors toward other CUC type inverts. Just worth bearing in mind.

Also, there’s a reason the industry has come to adore certain snails. Like, odds are you’re not gonna find a local species that can outcompete a trochus on glass or a nassarius on sandsifting.

Where are you looking to gather snails?

 

[SueAndHerZoo]

Depends on where you’re from too. I had the same idea in relation to snails from Long Island NY. The thing is, a lot of those are whelks or moonsnails or other species with super predatory behaviors toward other CUC type inverts. Just worth bearing in mind.

Also, there’s a reason the industry has come to adore certain snails. Like, odds are you’re not gonna find a local species that can outcompete a trochus on glass or a nassarius on sandsifting.

Where are you looking to gather snails?

I'm in Connecticut, and I pretty much know what whelks look like so would be super careful when picking out a few snails for the pony tank. The rest I'm putting in my predator tank..... they can either clean or get eaten.
Sue

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

I'm in Connecticut, and I pretty much know what whelks look like so would be super careful when picking out a few snails for the pony tank. The rest I'm putting in my predator tank..... they can either clean or get eaten.
Sue

I actually got into this hobby in a not too dissimilar way. I’m guessing you’ve probably been clamming at some point on the east coast? I found a species of crab that’s native to the Caribbean while clamming in NY. First ever specimen recorded in NY, one in a TRILLION find. Anyways, I ended up setting up a tank for it!

 

[SueAndHerZoo]

I actually got into this hobby in a not too dissimilar way. I’m guessing you’ve probably been clamming at some point on the east coast? I found a species of crab that’s native to the Caribbean while clamming in NY. First ever specimen recorded in NY, one in a TRILLION find. Anyways, I ended up setting up a tank for it!

Yup, been quite a few years, but I used to love clamming. But WOW - how do you figure a Caribbean crab made his way to New York? A very long swim or a stowaway on a boat? What a cool find!
Sue

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

Yup, been quite a few years, but I used to love clamming. But WOW - how do you figure a Caribbean crab made his way to New York? A very long swim or a stowaway on a boat? What a cool find!
Sue

Larvae and juveniles get swept up by currents. Common enough with fish, but a MUCH rarer phenomenon with crustaceans. I’m a spearfisherman and this summer I shot a sheepshead, which are native to Virginia to Florida, and we also get tropical pelagics like tuna and mahi, as well as the occasional rare tropic like a tarpon or a cubera snapper.

Outdoors; Finding Exotic Fish in Unusual Settings (Published 1988)

www.nytimes.com

Cubera Snapper Speared off Block Island - On The Water

For the second summer in a row, a cubera snapper has been caught in Rhode Island waters.

www.onthewater.com

A Group of Free Divers Speared a Tarpon off the Coast of New Jersey

It's not unprecedented, but a spearfisherman has taken a tarpon in South Jersey. And he says that there are more.

www.outdoorlife.com

This doesn’t just apply to gamefish either though. This summer I had a juvenile damselfish dart in front of my mask, gorgeous neon blue and yellow, I believe it was a Beau Gregory or a very similar species. There’s also the Ponquogue bridge where local divers find spotfin butterflyfish most summers.

With that said, fish can swim with the current, whereas a juvenile crustacean would need to continuously get into stronger currents that keep them from sinking, basically like a paper airplane catching winds just right to keep going for thousands of miles. The species I found was a calappa Flammea, flame streaked box crab, which are both a substrate dwelling crab and are super super uncommon in the aquarium hobby, which rules out the likelihood it stayed on the hull of a boat or was released by an irresponsible hobbyist. So, my find was very likely a permanent one off. Kept him for 6-8 months but he died when I brought my tank with me to NY for the summer.

When I first found him he was the size of a golf ball but as you can see two molts later he got pretty big.

Not exactly invert safe… he did this cool thing where he snapped open trochus snails to get ever last drop of meat, only left the central spiral, by using a lever that was built into his claw like a can opener. Basically evolved to be an absolute menace towards sessile inverts.

 

[blecki]

I can't imagine cold water snails last too long in a higher temp tank anyway.

 

[SueAndHerZoo]

I can't imagine cold water snails last too long in a higher temp tank anyway.

That's what I was wondering.... if they can adapt or they will perish. Still alive after 2 days, but too soon to tell.

 

[cilyjr]

I am from Rhode Island but I moved to California about 6 years ago. So I am familiar with the local East Coast snails.
The local snails here in California are margarita snails. They look identical to what you would get at the pet store.
But because the water is about 65° in the summer, the snails do not last long in a reef aquarium.
I cannot imagine the local snails around Narragansett Bay surviving, but who knows the water gets warmer there in the summertime.

 

[SueAndHerZoo]

I am from Rhode Island but I moved to California about 6 years ago. So I am familiar with the local East Coast snails.
The local snails here in California are margarita snails. They look identical to what you would get at the pet store.
But because the water is about 65° in the summer, the snails do not last long in a reef aquarium.
I cannot imagine the local snails around Narragansett Bay surviving, but who knows the water gets warmer there in the summertime.

One of my tanks has aggressive predators so I basically grabbed the snails for them to chomp on and grind their teeth, but then wondered if I could put a few in the seahorse tank to help clean. Right now I have all the snails in the predator tank . . . will let you know if they survive.
Sue

 

[MantisShrimpMan]

I can't imagine cold water snails last too long in a higher temp tank anyway.

I am from Rhode Island but I moved to California about 6 years ago. So I am familiar with the local East Coast snails.
The local snails here in California are margarita snails. They look identical to what you would get at the pet store.
But because the water is about 65° in the summer, the snails do not last long in a reef aquarium.
I cannot imagine the local snails around Narragansett Bay surviving, but who knows the water gets warmer there in the summertime.

I should maybe mention this about my story:

The crab I found is endemic to waters that rarely drop below like 68ish, but more usually in the 75-80 area like the reef tanks most of us keep. When I found it in 55 degree water in October- The thing was catatonic- it didn’t move at all- and NY water temps drop WAY colder than that by mid winter. So all signs point to the likelihood that, had I not found the crab, it would have died soon after.

When I found the crab in mid October- I left it in a pen hanging off a dock, and in the meantime set up a tank in my college apartment during early November and brought it back to college in St. Louis at Thanksgiving break- so the water temp had dropped even further. I also knew that if I instantly swapped it from 45 to 70+ degrees, it would likely die from the shock. So I figured out a pretty nifty solution that should also be applicable to the snails.

The advice I have that I would imagine is applicable to a lot of people living on the East Coast is to take advantage of attached garages. During November when I needed to begin acclimating it to warmer temps after pulling it from the bay, I put it in a bucket of saltwater in my parents garage. Obviously the garage being attached to the house gets some degree of residual heat and has some degree of insulation, but it’s not made to reach the same temp as whatever the interior of the house is set to. So because the garage was only around maybe 50-60 degrees, it let the water temp rise significantly more gradually, and after an extended period I then moved it inside the house and let the water temp rise the rest of the way.

 

[SueAndHerZoo]

At this point they are all alive, but not at all active.

 

[MIKE NY]

Once in awhile I’ll collect the local mud snails (Nass. Species) give them a cleaning( freshwater bath) and acclimate them to the higher PH, temp, Salinity etc.. I never had a problem with disease, but unfortunately they are a cold water species and only last about 2 years. I also tried Moon snails, not in my reef, but a F/O tank with a deep sandbed. I never saw it during the daylight and I would feed them clams. Again they only lasted a couple of years.