Of all the fascinating invertebrates available to marine aquarists, grazing snails are perhaps the most misused. Too often we treat them like expendable little lawnmowers, plopping them in our tanks with the express purpose of preventing or eradicating algae and then replenishing them as their populations inevitably wane. But if treated properly, snails can be long-lived tank denizens that not only perform a useful purpose but also provide interest in their own right.
那么，“滥用海洋蜗牛”是什么意思？以下是一些更常见的不当做法，当时放牧放牧的腹足动物：
1) Stocking in excessive numbers
我恳求你忽略任何建议的of “To control algae X, add Y number of snails per every Z gallons of aquarium volume.” There is no correlation between the volume of water an aquarium can hold and the number of grazing snails the system can support long term. It all comes down to food supply.
Simply put, the system must contain adequate, ongoing growths of the appropriate algae to sustain the type/number of snails you introduce. Otherwise, your grazing gastropods will quickly eat themselves out of house and home and begin starve to death. It’s always best to start with just a few specimens, observe how they perform when it comes to keeping algae in check, and then add more only if necessary.
2）在热带储罐中存放冷水物种
一些海洋蜗牛出于藻类控制的目的出售给了不知情的业余爱好者，通常是“cleanup crew”—are actually from temperate waters and won’t survive long in tropical aquariums. One such example isTegula Funebralis, which is commonly sold as the “margarita snail” (other snail species are assigned this same moniker as well).
3) Right snail, wrong algae
In other cases, the snail species in question may be well suited to tropical conditions but simply won’t eat the type of algae it was introduced to control. For example, a hobbyist hearing that tropicalLithopomaspp。snails are good algae eaters might add a bunch of them in hopes that they’ll bring an end to, say, a气泡藻类暴发。麻烦的是，他们不能吃泡沫藻类，也不会在其中造成那么多的凹痕。相反，它们以硅藻和微藻膜为食。如果这些不可用，也没有其他努力来喂养它们，那么它们可能会饿死，尤其是在大量库存的情况下。
4) Stocking based on a transient algae bloom
业余爱好者经常犯的另一个蜗牛储存错误是添加许多蜗牛，以响应藻类的自然序列，这些藻类通常会随着新的储罐的成熟而发生。例如，在建立了一个新的水箱后不久，通常要开发硅藻的花朵，这使水箱中的所有表面都令人难以置信。
啊，但是Lithopoma蜗牛吃硅藻！掉进了十二次左右，问题解决了，对吗？好吧，是的，否。没错，蜗牛会吃掉硅藻，但是在新水族馆的加班阶段，这种花朵往往是自限制的，因此所有这些蜗牛的食物供应很快就会“干燥”，使它们容易遭受饥饿。
5）无法提供正确的基材
在购买蜗牛之前，研究放牧蜗牛的另一个原因是，有些人在基质. For instance, certainCerithiumspp。在业余爱好中出售自然是挖洞，并以沙子中的碎屑和其他食物为食，因此必须在水瓶座中提供深层沙床。这些蜗牛可能包含在清理工作人员中，而购买这些包裹之一的业余爱好者可能不知道这一要求。
Also, some grazing snails routinely sold in the aquarium trade, e.g., various涡轮spp。and the aforementionedLithopomaspp。除其他外，如果应该在沙子上倾斜，他们可能无法纠正自己。原因是它们自然出现在礁石公寓上，它们总是与硬表面保持联系。In aquariums with fine-grained substrates, if these snails do end up getting knocked onto the sand on their side or back, they’ll just lie there—vulnerable to predation by opportunistic tankmates—unless an observant hobbyist picks them up and returns them to the rocks.
做你的作业！
The bottom line is, it’s important to learn all you can about the habits and care requirements of any snail species before buying it, just as you would with fish, corals, or other livestock, and don’t assume that a snail species is appropriate for your system just because a dealer is offering it for sale or it’s packaged as part of a cleanup crew.
