Is Queen Conch eating snails?

[1stSALTank]

Twice now I have found my Queen Conch with foot firmly attached to the bottom of a star snail. I had three, now I have one. Could she be eating them? We also added 3 sand sifting snails at the same time. very tiny..oh so cute.....they lasted two days...well one did last that long...hermit crabs took over bodies....Our Candy Striped Shrimp was really bugging them...could she have eaten them. One hungry tank....this AM last star attached to QC..had to really beat up QC to get it away....don't know if there is a live body inside of star shell...if not...all three are gone. help

 

[NaH2O]

Hmmm....can you post a picture of your queen conch? I guess the first thing would be to make sure it is a conch. Sometimes whelks can look like conchs. You can actually check yourself.....when the snail is out of its shell, does it have large eyes at the end of a long stalks with a noticable pupil? Whelks have eyes that are just a black dot with no noticable structure, and are located at the base of the tentacles coming off the top of the head.

Secondly, is the conch using its probiscus anywhere on the shell, or is it only the foot that is attached to your other snails? They eat with their probiscus, so that should help you determine what it is eating.

Another thing, the snails could be dieing or dead, and everything is just cleaning them up. Were the snails acclimated to your tank?

What is the tank size? How long has it been up? What are your water parameters?

 

[1stSALTank]

i will have to check out the pupil thing....but I'm sure she's a queen conch. They seem acklimated. I know that they do not eat with the foot...but that is how i found the empty shells.

As I said before I caught the Candy Stripe Shrimp just digging away at them with his feet. I tried to separate them, but don't know what goes on when I am not watching.

I have a nano cube...it's been up a couple of years.

Oh, since the demise of the star snails, "Melvine" ( the name we gave the conch) has been more active then ever. She really is cruising around the tank..all over the glass and all around the contents....maybe she is just happy to see some new empty shells!!! I don't know.

I will have to down size some pics and get themn posted.

by the way, thanks

 

[NaH2O]

How long have you had the conch? Does it have enough of a food source?

Usually shrimp will pick at snails if they are dead or dieing. If the snails seemed acclimated, how did you acclimate them?