[cofstl411]

I bought a 4" fighting conch three days ago. It has buried itself in the sand for the whole time. His back and eye stalks are the only thing showing. He has not moved in two days. Is this normal?

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by cofstl411

I bought a 4" fighting conch three days ago. It has buried itself in the sand for the whole time. His back and eye stalks are the only thing showing. He has not moved in two days. Is this normal?

Yes.

[yankeebobo]

When we got ours, I don't think we saw him for almost a week. Then, voila. Out it came, every feeding.

[cofstl411]

Thanks, I was worried.

[Poseidon]

Mine vanished for WEEKS, I thought they were goners, and one day POOF! I see 2 cruising around the tank! They are very cool, but require quite a bit of sq. footage to thrive.

[cofstl411]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

Mine vanished for WEEKS, I thought they were goners, and one day POOF! I see 2 cruising around the tank! They are very cool, but require quite a bit of sq. footage to thrive.

I have a 125 gallon tank. Hopefully, that will be enough for a while. Can you supplement their diet with seaweed or something else? It would be hard to do with my foxface in the tank though. He does not let anything get by him.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by cofstl411

I have a 125 gallon tank. Hopefully, that will be enough for a while. Can you supplement their diet with seaweed or something else? It would be hard to do with my foxface in the tank though. He does not let anything get by him.

I purchased two fighting conchs (Strombus alatus) for my tank about a month after setting it up. It's approximately the same size as your tank. I have a 6" DSB with tons of life because I purchased more than $500 worth of 'detritivore kit' critters and live sand when I set up my sand bed.

The two conchs were both about 1.75" long when I received them. Since I pre-cycled my sand bed for ten days before adding fully-cured live rock, my cycle was very short and I was able to add my detritivore critters about two weeks after adding my live rock.

The conchs seemed to have a particular preference for diatoms. Unfortunately for them, my diatom phase lasted only about ten days to two weeks. They also liked to eat film algae on the lower glass walls of the tank. They just propped themselves up against the glass and cleaned whatever areas they could reach. I don't believe I ever observed them eating any leftover 'fish food.' It is possible that they might eat algae-based flake food but I can't say that I actually observed that.

Occasionally they would leap above the sand bed. This is something cute to watch. They are capable of jumping about two inches above the surface of the sand bed and ending up about three inches down the road. They did this probably three or four times a week, maybe more. It's just natural behavior.

They like to bury themselves in the sand bed. Because my sand bed is so deep, they were able to bury their shells completely just beneath the surface. Usually you can spot where they are by looking for an eye stalk above the sand. Sometimes they would stay buried for just a couple of hours and other times they would stay buried for a few weeks. One of mine stayed buried for about two months once.

Both of my fighting conchs died within two years of purchase. The first one died after about 18 months and the second one died a few months later. Both were only about 2.25" at the time of death. I came to the conclusion that they starved to death in my tank. Their natural growth rate is much faster than what I observed in my system.

I would like to try another one in the future if I can find a nice little one -- no more than 1.5" long. Their maximum adult size is approximately 3"-4", so I am hopeful that starting out with a juvenile may allow it to survive for a longer period of time. It may be that even a juvenile would need a larger sand bed surface than what I have. I have a sneaky suspicion that these animals, as well as Holothurian sand cucumbers, really require large tanks for long term survivability. In this case, by long term I mean more than three years. I don't know what the minimum size tank is but I suspect that it is at least 180 gallons and perhaps as much as 300 gallons. I realize that many hobbyists have them in tanks smaller than mine but I wonder how long they last?