I am now officially the proud owner of a turbo snail.  This should help with the brown algae bloom I am currently experiencing.  In this entry, I want to touch on the fact that I have heard some mixed things about keeping these creatures in a reef tank environment.

From what I gather, it seems that a lot of people have trouble keeping turbo snails alive.  Apparently, a lot of these folks end up overpopulating their tanks with clean-up crews so everything looks “nice and pretty,” but in such large numbers they end up starving to death when owners neglect to give them supplemental food as needed.

The second article I read shared about how a lot of turbo snails come from Mexico, and originally lived in a subtropical environment.  This makes the 78-80 degree temperature of a reef tank stressful for this type of turbo snail.  In this theory, it ends up being impossible for the snails to become properly acclimated to the tank.

I don’t know what will happen, but for every person that can’t successfully keep a turbo snail in captivity, I am able to find someone who can.  Here’s a picture: