Strombus Luhuanus

[Donya]

Can anyone tell me what the maximum size is on this species of snail?

Strombus luhuanus = blood conch, red conch, red-lip conch, strawberry conch, etc. It is the species that is often confused for being a coneshell at a glance and has a serated, rather sharp "barb". I have been searching for references to maximum size and what I have read is all over the place...I'm not sure whether various sources are mixing up species or not since many simply use the common name. There is also a red-FOOT conch that is a completely different species, and unfortunatey also often called the "red conch".

 

[Donya]

Nobody does these little guys huh?

 

[Fish Fingers]

I've got one but I'm not sure what the max size is sorry. At the moment he is about 2 inches long. They are very cool snails

 

[Donya]

They are definitely awsome snails. Does yours have a steady growth rate? There were a couple sources that quoted 2" for maximum size, but others said 3"...and one said 6" I figure that one surely must be wrong.

BTW is yours omivorous, or does it stick mainly to algaes? I've also read conflicting info on diet as well...Strombus is supposedly a strictly herbivorous genus (as opposed to the other predatory/carnivorous conch genera), but all the Strombus species on liveaquaria.com are listed as omnivores.

 

[Fish Fingers]

I haven't really noticed it growing, it really only comes out at night. When I do se it though it seems too only eat mainly algae. Apparently they eat cyano, but I'm not sure if thats true or not.

 

[Donya]

Given all the things that nose of theirs can do I wouldn't be surprised if they can eat cyano. I'm going to try out some different types of algae sheets. I wonder why these guys arn't more popular...I went back to the store today sure that they'd all be gone, and they were the only things from that week's shipment that wasn't completely baught out