Cone Snail Info...

[Whalehead9]

Any REALLY good sites about these critters...anyone kept them before?
Just curious.

[pagojoe]

Yeah, Venwu keeps some of the worm eaters now, and I've also kept quite a few of the vermivores in the past. Mostly I kept molluscivorous and piscivorous cones in my tank, however, so the life span of any vermivore in the tank was usually limited. (Seeee, Leslie, not all cones are baddies....some might even be considered, um, wormy life preservers... :) )

There is a ton of info on cone snails available on the net these days, and Dr. Livett attempts to catalog and organize much of that info. A lot of it relates to conotoxin research, but you will still find some fantastic info on his pages. Check this out, then click on the link in the middle of the page:

http://grimwade.biochem.unimelb.edu.au/cone/marinara.html

For the unscientific and easily entertained, you may also read my musings regarding the interactions between different species of cone snails and other molluscs. It was written some years ago as a "blog" of the antics in my tank (originally on Conch-L) and ended up being published in several places and several languages. If you are interested:

http://www.manandmollusc.net/conewars/conewars.html

(That's Eduardo currently in my avatar.)

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask, I'll do my best to give you answers. Cones are comparatively easy to keep in a tank, you just need to treat them with some respect.

Cheers,



Don

[venwu225]

easy if you have the right diet. which can be very diffcult to come by.

[venwu225]

btw don, nice to see you here. I have been a fan of your cone wars since a long time ago. Too bad they had to die...
I would have done anything to just HAVE ONE of the cones in your chronicles...

[pagojoe]

Ha, thanks venwu. They didn't all actually die. When I left Samoa, I dropped all the ones that were still alive off at Hopkins Marine Lab in Pacific Grove. They milked several of the snails for venom over a period of years. The Conus textile and Conus canonicus guys didn't particularly care for the Californian snail diet, but the Conus striatus, Conus tulipa, and Conus catus were happy to eat the small sculpins and other fish from Monterey Bay. Maybe I'll send you a cone from my next trip down there, don't let it kill you if I do...

Cheers,



Don

[pagojoe]

By the way, venwu... the worm eaters are the most difficult to keep, unless you have a really good breeding population of worms in your tank. Some of the worm eaters are particular what they eat (e.g., adult Conus imperialis will only eat "fire worms"), but most will eat any small polychaete they can catch, and the Caribbean cones will eat Pacific worms and vice versa. I'd never heard of feeding them earthworms until you posted that :) . The molluscivores should be easy to keep, if you want to keep supplying them with live Nassarius. The small ones from the Pacific as well as Nassarius vibex will work for most of them. A few seem to eat only cowries, so that might be more difficult (Conus magnificus and Conus episcopatus). The deadly fish eaters are the easiest, although many on here would choke on the thought of putting blennies and gobies in the tank as prey, I think. If you starve Conus striatus, they will eventually manage to catch damsels or just about any other small fish in the tank, even though they would probably only rarely catch one in the wild.

Cheeeeeeers,



Don

[venwu225]

yea I feed my c.ebraeus and c.sponsalis numerous species of local pugent sound polychaetes. They show significant growth and does well.

[venwu225]

I went to hawaii in the past and actually located several conus catus in the reefs. I tried feeding them small gobies and I think they were too freaked out to eat. I only kept them over night because I was in fear that lack of filteration would doom them. I love these animals, and couldn't bare the thought of killing one.

[venwu225]

I went to hawaii in the past and actually located several conus catus in the reefs. I tried feeding them small gobies and I think they were too freaked out to eat. I only kept them over night because I was in fear that lack of filteration would doom them. I love these animals, and couldn't bare the thought of killing one. If you could send me a piscivore or an molluscivore that would be SPLENDED...I could never repay you for such act of grand generosity. On maui I also found many worm eaters but only one broken shell of a c.textile....Which I still covet...

[venwu225]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29847562@N00/sets/72157594258964710/

here are some photos. they are happy.

[LeslieH]

Oh sure, first you talk about "wormy life preservers" but a just a few posts later you discuss worm eaters. It's obvious that the both of you have spent a lot of time feeding poor helpless little cute wormies that never hurt anyone to your cones..... :sad2:









:lol:

[pagojoe]

Nice pics, venwu (DON'T LOOK, LESLIEEEEEEEE, worm killing in progress....).

Conus catus are probably the hardest of the fish-eaters to keep, maybe because they don't transport as well. They live in high-energy, well-aerated water, and it's difficult to duplicate that in shipping. The ones you had in Hawaii would have probably settled down so that you could feed them, but they might not have survived the trip back. Your best bet for bringing them back would be to wrap them in damp towels rather than trying to keep them in aerated water.

Conus striatus are tougher, and are hard to kill. They are also easier to feed, and can survive in fairly low-oxygen, low movement tanks as well as in high-energy tanks. Conus tulipa like highly aerated water, but they are fairly hard to kill also. They are more picky about what they eat than C. striatus, and can't catch as large a variety of prey.

Even though they are probably the second most deadly, Conus striatus make pretty cool aquarium residents, and are the easiest to keep and transport. I'll see if I can't get one back alive.

Cheers,



Don

[LeslieH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10300290#post10300290 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pagojoe
Nice pics, venwu (DON'T LOOK, LESLIEEEEEEEE, worm killing in progress....).

:eek2: :thumbdown :sad1: :uzi:

[venwu225]

and do you keep the worms you recieve in an aquarium that mimics their natural environment? Or ethanol? :D

[LeslieH]

Ethanol, of course! And I do it with love so that makes a lot of difference. they die very happily..... ;D