Reef Safe Snails

Reef safe snails are a must have cleanup crew member. There are several types that are reef safe. Reef safe means that they won’t eat your corals or other creatures that you want to have in your tank.

Snails are pretty inexpensive and do a wonderful job of keeping your rocks, sand and glass clean.

How many should I have?

It’s a good question. Opinions vary quite a bit on this subject. Some snails only live a couple of years and need to be replaced. Others will propagate. What it boils down to is what your particular reef can support.

It has been suggested that you have 1 snail for every 2 to 3 gallons of water in your tank. For some tanks that may be too many. I suggest you start off with one for every 5 gallons and see how that goes. You can always add a few more if they cannot keep up with their cleaning duties.

Here are some of the many choices for candidates.

Turbo snails are a good addition to any cleanup crew. These snails are referred to as grazers and eat several types of micro algae found in the home aquarium.

Turbo snails have a blunt shell and grow to about 2 1/2". The shell is a blackish color unless covered with coralline algae.

They do get fairly large and can knock over loose items in the tank.

The Turbo Snail, like most reef safe snails, requires calcium for their shells, so you will need sufficient calcium levels in your water. They need this calcium for their ever growing shell.

They are very hardy if acclimated properly and will live for 2 to 3 years.

I would recommend no more than 1 or 2 turbos for every 20 gallons.

Return to top

They eat both green and brown film algae and do a good job of it. They don’t seem to eat long hair algae though.

The Astraea snail has a sharp conical shell with pronounced ridges circling the shell.

The shell is normally a light tan color but, like most snails, the shell becomes covered with coralline algae. Astraea snails will remain moderately small at about 1/4 to 1”.

Astraea snails are known to have an annoying habit that they cannot right themselves if they fall and land on their back. If you see one on its back you should right it or it will die.

I recommend 1 astraea snail for every 5 gallons.

Return to top

This is my favorite snail, but for some reason I have a hard time finding them at local fish stores. Cerith Snails are very active eaters. They feed upon diatom, detritus and film algae that are growing around rocks. They are a great addition to any reef tank.

They have an elongated shell with spirals and very small spikes. The shell color can vary quite a bit. They grow from 1/2 to 1 1/2” long.

There are known to eat red diatom and algae. They are also one of the only snails that will eat algae that grow below the sand near the front of your aquarium.

Cerith Snails will often bury themselves in the sand, which will help maintain adequate oxygen levels in the substrate.

They are also long lived in captivity, which makes them a popular choice for your reef safe snails.

I recommend 1 cerith snail for every 5 gallons of water.

Return to top

Trochus snails are now an available species for the reef aquarist. They eat a variety of nuisance algae including long hair, short hair and diatoms

The trochus snail has a conical shape that is tighter than a typical turbo snail. They are also long lived.

These snails spend a lot of time cleaning the diatom algae off your glass.

As far as size goes, they are smaller than Turbo snails.

You can easily put 1 trochus snail per 3 gallons of water.

Those are some reef safe snails for you to choose from, but there are a few others you might consider as well.