Around 40,000 species of snails have been found living in the sea. One such species of snail is the turbo snail or turban snail. As the name indicates this snail has a shape of turban and belongs to the Gulf Of California. The turbo snail does extremely well in a saltwater aquarium if it has enough space to hide ample amount of food to graze. It feeds itself on the algae that grows on the glass and contributes in cleaning the aquarium. Calcium is very essential for this snail to build its shell therefore they will suffice only when adequate level of calcium is maintained in the home aquarium. In the absence of algae you need to supplement their diet with dried seaweed.
They are usually not available from July to September, during these months people can use Margarita snails as better substitute. Apart from the Turbo snails you can also keep Black Mystery Snail, Gold mystery Snail, Periwinkle Snail and Columbian Ram’s Horn. They have better sustaining capacity in the salt water but very sensitive to the Quick Cure. Remove the snails gently into other container with safer water and then treat your aquarium with Quick Cure.
These snails survive on many kinds of foods especially flake food, algae and the leftover food settled on the bottom. They not only improve the quality of water but also compatible to most fish. The average life span of these snails depends directly on the temperature they are kept. Those kept at 82 degrees F live up to 12 to 16 months while those at 65 degrees F live up to 3 years and sometimes 10 years too.
