Astraea Snail, are not suitable for reef aquarium....

Gouldian · May 18, 2012

Hi guys,

Spoke with a few hobbyists recently during a shipment of star snails. They were disturbed that why Marine Aquarist Society (Singapore) are not discouraging reefers to buy such snails that are not meant for reefs.

They pointed to me that Dr Ron Shimek has wrote an article about it in Reef Keeping 2004 Issue, I cannot recall that article during that time thus did not comment about it.

In the above mentioned article, Dr Ron mentioned "Many of the actual individuals of Astraea offered for sale in the reef aquarium hobby come from the cooler waters of Baja California. " and "Given that they also are not warm water animals, they tend to die young and leave a good-looking corpse in the aquarium". So should we stop buying Astraea? Yes, I would think so until we have further information.

So how about those reefers that have bought or currently have "Astraea" snails in their tank?

Good news, these snails will still be able to serve you well. From what I have found, the "Astraea" snails that we get in Singapore are in fact, Astralium snails from Philippines, these of course are from tropical reefs. In fact, IMHO they are better cleaner compared to Turbos or Tronchus plus the fact that they looks better, remain small, affordable and hardworking.

However, I would like to take this opportunity to share another part of Dr Ron's article I find is lacking in Singapore.

"The complexity of internal anatomy in snails is one major reason why some of the Trochoideans seem to die easily, or otherwise not live through their full life spans in our tanks. Although most folks probably never give it a second thought, snails have a complex internal morphology. In many ways, the internal structures that the snails possess have allowed them to be very successful. It is not, however, a particularly "rugged" morphology when subjected to some specific stresses. Snail tissues often seem to be composed of thin layers of tissue that are very filmy and diaphanous. Consequently, they often suffer significant damage during water changes or during transport from a dealer's to an aquarist's tank. The circulatory system of snails may be very complex (Figure 5), and many of its vessels and channels can rupture under stresses caused by changes in salinity. The vessels in the kidney are numerous and delicate, and may rupture if the animal is not slowly acclimated when being moved from one set of water conditions to another. If the acclimation is too fast, the animal will die in a few minutes to a few weeks. If the snails are drip acclimated, the acclimation time may need to be on the order of five to ten hours for maximal survival."

I hope the above will encourage our reefers to acclimate their snails slowly.

Happy reefing.

Source:

http://reefkeeping.c...05/rs/index.php

http://www.chucksadd...com/snails.html

http://www.gastropod...NIDAEASTRAEINAE