Need a CUC!

[dynamite]

I need a CUC for my 90g, Only snails no hermits, no crabs.
They will need to be big cuz I vacuum my sand. Plus they'll need to eat detritus, fish waste and algae :mrgreen: I need the top of the top, any suggestions? :razz:

Thanks in advance!

[albert_dao]

I need a CUC for my 90g, Only snails no hermits, no crabs.
They will need to be big cuz I vacuum my sand. Plus they'll need to eat detritus, fish waste and algae :mrgreen: I need the top of the top, any suggestions? :razz:

Thanks in advance!

I use lots of brittle stars; black ones, pink ones, marbled ones. Just not the big nasty green ones.

[ALang]

I love my sand-burrowing snails. Some of them are very pretty with orange spots on their shells, others just plain cream color. They have the bonus of being pretty entertaining.
They remain in the sandbed until there's food around, then they all erupt from the sand bed like little tanks and crawl extremely quickly (amazing speed!) to the food.
Once I dropped a clam in (food) and they were all over it in no time. The trigger only got a few bites. So pretty good at searching out dead/extra food stuff.
Be careful when siphoning the sandbed. But you can usually see them and their siphons poking out. They are usually about a nickel-size at the store. They grow very slowly, too.

[dynamite]

Perfect! Thank you for the answers.
I need the names of the snails I should buy :D

BUMP!

[whatcaneyedo]

Get an abalone if you can (Haliotis sp.). I have two in my 120gal and they are hands down the best snail there is. In fact they are now the only snails (apart from some small hitchhikers) that I have in that tank and I've had turbos, astreas, trochus, nassarius, ceriths and a conch. At up to 3" they're quite large but they don't have a huge shell so they don't knock anything over and they wont get stuck on their backs. They also move quite fast (for a snail) and consume more film algae than any other snail I've kept.

[Rogue951]

tonga nassarius are the fast moving sandbed dwellers. only eat dead things so if u see it on something its dead/dying.
do a grest job of stirring the sand. cerith snails also stir the sand. but they flip easily. margaritas are good for rock/glass. except once it finds glass it usually wont go back to rock.
turbos are the biggest next to abalone. but they can also bulldoze so make sure frags are anchored.

[ALang]

That's interesting about an abalone. Seen them at the stores but never thought of them in my tank due to their size.
They really don't knock things over??

[whatcaneyedo]

They have the strength to knock things over but mine never have in the 3 years that I've had them. They don't force their way through gaps and openings like a large snail might and since they have a low profile they don't accidentally bump into or snag on things either. Avalanches in my tank are caused by the 27" moray.

Another observation I've made about abalone is that they can be territorial. Or at least mine are so I wouldn't recommend any more than one per 50gal. When mine come into contact with each other they try to fight by ramming at each other with their shells. This only ever lasts a few seconds until one of them, the smaller one, retreats to another area of the tank.

One more observation is that I generally just see them on the glass. My rocks are covered in coraline and coral so they mostly stick to the film algae that grows on the glass. Which they do a wonderful job of reducing.

[ALang]

Thanks whatcanyedo.
How interesting. Now I will consider one of those.
Loved the description of the two snails shell-butting!

[ReefOcean]

Brittle stars, tuxedo urchins, turbo snails, scarlet hermit, tigretail cucumber and all are pretty big. Best of luck

[chandigz]

I have Tigertail cuc, tonga and small nassa snails, fighting and other small conchs(Love these guys), Olive snails, mudflat snails, Cerith snails, brittle stars, red stripe trochus snails, star and other astrea snails, annular ring cowries and abalone. . I have enough of all these that there is no need to vacume or clean anything other than the glass once and a while. I can't even remember the last time I vaccumed the tank. I has to be at least a couple of years.
I'm not a big fan of turbos because of the size they get and they turn into bulldozers. Urchins? Well depends on the urchin(benifits/risks). Most margarita snails come from cooler water so usually don't do well.