Queen or Fighting Conch?

[IcantTHINKofONE]

What's the difference? Which is better?

 

[SPC]

What's the difference? Which is better?

-The queen has the poetential to grow quite large and would out grow most of our tanks. The fighting only reaches about 4" and is what I would recommend. They both do the same job.
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Hmmmm...should I reverse my answer that I gave you on the "other" board just to confuse you?
Jim

 

[ChumbawambaMan]

i dont know which conch i have, but let me tell you, ive altered my vocabulary specifically for the conch. from now on, all pieces of garbage people that i detest and loathe, i call a conch. this is due to the fact that i lost one $45 and two $25 maxima clams to one before i realized how much of a conch they really are.

 

[Reefguide]

Can you be a bit more specific? What exactly happened?

 

[ChumbawambaMan]

the first clam i bought looked good for about a day, then when i turned the lights on in the morning, the shell had been completely scoured clean. polished even. i believed my blue stripe legged hermit had done the deed, seeing as how he was big and not afraid to steal food from anemones and fish and was otherwise a jerk. so a year passed and i thought id try again with the clams.
so i purchased two, and they looked awesome, one had the potential of being my favorite thing in the entire world. but once again the lights turned off i went to sleep and waking up early i discovered one clam had been polished off in the same manner, and the other clam had the conch on top of it, with the its mouth parts extended deep within the clam. im nearly 99 percent sure that the clam was in perfect health at the time of his demise and that the conch was eating him, and there was nothing the immobile invertabrate could do.

 

[Anonymous]

rotfflmfaopimpbatfwstnca!


Conches and other similar snails (can't remember the word, on a sugar high right now) eat bivalves in the wild. (Doh!) I'm sure the conches love you for dropping filet mignon right in the tank for them. Sorry you had to learn that one through experience.

 

[tazdevil]

That's where the research part of reefing comes in handy. 8O :roll:

eh benm, I understand the rotfflmfao part of the word, what's up with the rest?

rotfflmfaopimpbatfwstnca!

 

[SPC]

Conches and other similar snails (can't remember the word, on a sugar high right now) eat bivalves in the wild.

Uh, does anyone have a link showing where Strombus gigas or alatus eat calms or any meat for that matter? :?
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

eh benm, I understand the rotfflmfao part of the word, what's up with the rest?

rotfflmfaopimpbatfwstnca!

rolling on the ******* floor laughing my ******* ass off peeing in my pants banging on the wall scaring the neighbor's cat away.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah Steve, I'd love to see a reference to that as well.

 

[Anonymous]

one had the potential of being my favorite thing in the entire world

Such a sad realm we inhabit! I'm pretty sure conchs are herbivores...sure your's is a conch? Anyway, careful with that term- people from the Keys are called Conchs!

 

[Anonymous]

I did see an episode(blue planet?) on Discovery where a conch devoured another snail(I think a tulip snail was the prey). It wouldn't suprise me if conchs ate bivalves as well.

 

[ChrisRD]

FWIW - that conch on the Blue Planet series was referred to as a "Horse Conch". They didn't give a scientific name, but an internet search turns up Pleuroploca gigantea.

 

[ChrisRD]

A little more information on Horse Conchs...

http://www.whitney.ufl.edu/horse-conch.htm

 

[Reefguide]

Thats a real bummer... No conch for me then !

 

[SPC]

Wait a minute Reefguide, did you get the part about the horse conch? Strobus gigas (queen conch) and Strombus alatus (fighting conch) are not meat eaters, they are herbivores. There are many varieties of conch as well as welks that are not reef safe, these 2 are not one of them. They will not eat a clam.
Steve

 

[IcantTHINKofONE]

Also, I suspect that if someone is saying that a fighting conch or queen conch is causing havok in their tank, they may have been fooled and been sold some other type of conch under the impression of it being a fighter or queen.

 

[dvb]

I have 4 queen conchs in my 55. They are only about 3/4" long. As soon as they get too big, I will trade them in.

I have a small squamosa clam and my conchs haven't touched it at all. They get close, but always leave it alone.

 

[AWD]

I want a fighting conch, but my lfs said that they don't do any good for cleaning the sand. Is this true? I would also like to see reference to the fighting conch be a herbavore, omnivore, or carnivore. I have now read that they are all three.

Does anyone know?

Sorry, for tagging on this post, but it seems to be related.