horse conch

Cleaning the Big Horse Conch

While out on the boat the other day, I came across a large, empty horse conch just lying in the sand at low tide. It was a super hot day, and most shells were under water and inhabited by hermit crabs. I was thrilled to discover a big shell that was a keeper because nothing was living inside!

But it wasn’t pretty. Interesting, for sure, but not pretty. Barnacles encrusted most of the top (spire area) and most of the 10-inch long seashell was covered in black “skin” called periostracum. That info came from my seashell book, “Florida’s Living Beaches“.

florida horse conch — Florida Horse Conch – 10 Inches

I’ve never had such a messed up shell to clean, so I searched for a way to remove the coating and maybe see the shell colors underneath. I began by using my son’s toothbrush and scrubbing at the coating. (He’ll never know – haha, just kidding. Of course I bought him a new one).

At the best shell blog (besides my own, hee-hee) I found that Pam at I Love Shelling had written a nice article (see the link below) about cleaning her horse conchs. She has a lot of shells. She lives on Sanibel Island, where finding awesome shells is a daily thing. I don’t have that luxury, but we both love collecting seashells and I often refer to her experience to share. We both live in Florida, but she is on the Gulf coast and I am on the Atlantic / east coast where nice big empty seashells are a rare find.

I do however find them living! And that is an awesome sight. Read more about Finding A Living Horse Conch, with photos.

As of this writing, the photo below this is what my horse conch looks like. The barnacles have been chipped away and some of the periostracum has been removed. After I soaked the shell overnight in plain water, the barnacles could be chipped off with a butter knife – it’s all I had. I find that letting the shell dry out makes the brown stuff flaky so I can brush it off. But this process is going to take a while.

cleaning horse conch — Slowly Making Progress

Pam’s Tutorial For How To Clean Horse Conch Shells contains lots of great information. I notice that her black / brown shell was not totally cleaned up. But she had two others that ended up beautiful.

I may have to invest in some dental tools to scrape mine down. It may not end up very colorful, but I’d love to see what’s under there. If I don’t find any good color, I will leave it outside in the hot Florida sun to bleach white. It will still be a unique shell to add to my collection.

horse conch aperture — Aperture, 10-inch Horse Conch

FYI: The sea snail who created this shell is bright orange! A ten-inch shell seems pretty big to me, but the horse conch can grow to be almost twice as large as this one!

Also, I found a tiny broken horse conch lodged inside one of the crown conchs I collected and you can see pictures of that in this post.

Found a Big Horse Conch to Take Home

Yesterday, while walking the low tide sands around Three Sisters Islands, I came across a big seashell that was empty! I saw a lot of nice crown conchs, small pear whelks, and a nice big sharks eye shell, but all were occupied by hermit crabs. Until I saw the horse conch, all I had collected were bivalves, which were filled with sand, and not living creatures.

I found a giant Atlantic cockle which is joined, so I have two perfect, connected halves, and a pretty flat white shell which I believe is a dosinia.

We piled into the Gheenoe – three of us – which was a tight fit, and headed out in the heat to do some fishing and island hopping. Being the middle of the week, we had the river pretty much to ourselves. Since the tide was just beginning to come in, there was plenty of exposed sand to explore.

The only types of shells that are abundant are the clumps of oysters which are the bane of boaters. So finding some collectable shells means searching. It was a 95 degree day (actually cooler than what we’ve been having), and even the water was hot – yes, like a hot tub – but I shuffled around the edges of the island in search of something good that was close enough to see and reach. Continue reading “Found a Big Horse Conch to Take Home”

Shelling at Three Sisters Island Florida

horse conch seashell — Encrusted Horse Conch

My recent trip to Florida gave me opportunity to do some shelling, or seashell hunting. The Three Sisters Islands are in the backwater area of the intracoastal near Edgewater and that is where we dropped anchor one day. It was hot and we needed to take a dip in the very warm water (80’s at least) to try to cool off. The area around one of the islands was very shallow so I took a walk looking for shells.
The east coast of Florida is not exactly the best place to find shells, and most of the shells I saw were inhabited by hermit crabs. Those things are everywhere! But suddenly I spotted something large in the murky brown water and when I got up close I saw it was a big shell. When I lifted it out, this is what I saw.

The horse conch is the official Florida shell, and I’m pretty sure this is one. I wanted to keep it, and it had no living thing inside, but something attached to it was alive.
Those bumps you can see on the left side in my photo, were squishy and obviously living. I don’t know what they are – maybe some sort of coral? – but I had to put the shell back. So I took my own advice and took some photos and left nature alone.
The only shells I brought back home were collected along New Smyrna Beach, and they are not super impressive. But this horse conch was definitely my favorite find.