The Curious Case of the Missing Conch

I know I haven't posted in a while, so I thought that I should give you all a quick update about how my internship is going and what projects I am working on. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had proposed getting sea hares for the Clownfish tank in the Malacology Hall at the HMNS to clean some of the algae that is blanketing the bottom of the tank. I talked to Christine about this, but it was turned down because sea hares can get very large, too large for out tank. We have, however, amassed a collection of snails that are herbivores. These snails have done a great job with cleaning a lot of the algae out of the tank, but I still have to go in weekly to pick out what they miss. Christine also wanted to transform another aquarium in the Malacology Hall into a tank that would house carnivorous snails. I have been researching information about a couple different types and trying to find a couple key species that would work well in our tank, as well as with each other. I have deduced these snails to just a few important ones: a fighting conch, banded tulips, and apple murexes. The good thing about all these snails is that they have really pretty shell designs with lots of ornate colors and patterns. We also purchased a conch for the clownfish tank, yet we have not been able to find it for the past week. It shouldn't be able to get out of the tank cause it would have had to climb the tank's walls, so we think that it may have buried itself into the sand bottom on the tank. We even raked the sand with a pair of tongs yet were still unsuccessful at locating it. Hopefully we'll be able to find it soon to check on how its doing!