No worries it looks like a nassarius snail to me. Good guy for sure.
They are sand sifters. The bury in the sand, and come out when they smell food, or when something dies, or just at night to cruise around looking for food. Very cool snail, I have about 10 in my tank.
That's a whelk, bad!I'm moving all my stuff over to a new smaller tank and found this guy hiding stuck to the underside of a rock I flipped over which I thought was suspicious. Looks predatory to me. This was in my 90 which I've never been able to keep snails and hermits alive for long, figured it was the pistol shrimp offing them. I've googled the heck out of it and read some threads here but haven't come across consistent results.
Ahh, I stand corrected. I truly believed it was a nassarius.
Okay I apologize, dburr1014 must be correct, it sure looks like a nassarius to me, but it sounds like they know more , I was not aware of the “tattooed snout” but I did look at mine and their snout is indeed a solid color, black.
Nothing to worry about, these ID threads can be tough with random pictures and info presented. Definitely looks like a giant nassarius, only thing that tipped me off is how I found it attached to the underside of a rock otherwise I would've just pitched it into my reef tank without thinking.
It's already been identified as a welk.
Understood and appreciated.
Wow that would suck for sureHere is the same whelk I pulled from my tank when it was caught red handed eating a bumblebee snail.
For sure, about once a week I found an empty bumblebee snail shell over three weeks until I found the whelk on an upside down bumblebee snail, eating it. I wasn’t pleased.
Nassarius snail. Totally harmless and usually used as an important component of a marine tanks clean up crew. Instead of an algae diet like other snail, this tiny snail performs borrows into and out of the substrate surface sifting the sand to feed on settled decomposing organic matter. It is not a picky eater and will consume anything from detritus to decaying fish. I personally like to watch them come up out of the sand when I do a feeding. They seem to love mysis shrimp and will gladly surface from their underground refuge for this tasty morsel.I'm moving all my stuff over to a new smaller tank and found this guy hiding stuck to the underside of a rock I flipped over which I thought was suspicious. Looks predatory to me. This was in my 90 which I've never been able to keep snails and hermits alive for long, figured it was the pistol shrimp offing them. I've googled the heck out of it and read some threads here but haven't come across consistent results.
