Hitchiking Snail / Slug ID?

[jbacker7]

Hello,

I have tried asking friends, reading books, and searching the internet far and wide. I can not ID with this one.

I have these little purple snail / slug like organisms that have a established huge population in my tank. I believe their numbers are so large because I have been on a course of corrective action that involves overfeeding while trying to battle dinos for the past 2.5 months.

They mostly come out toward the end of the day and certainly once the lights go out. I believe they dwell both within the sand bed and in the rockwork.

They don't seem to be causing any harm, but I am just curious as to what they actually are.

See below for a photo of the population rising from the sand bed toward the end of the day yesterday:

Here is a closeup of one on the glass. It has no real shell, just a bulbous back end with a short "tail" the front end of it is very long. The left side is it's front, the right side is it's bulbous back end.

Here is a photo of one on the glass from the underside. Back end is bottom left. Front end is top right

Here are some misc. shots of them on the sand.

Their eggs are clear jellybean shaped sacs with little white dots in them. They look just like freshwater pond snail egg sacs.

The closest thing I can find online are stomatella snails, but those stomatellas look like they have antennae while these do not. The stomatella look like they have a very round mouth while these are more elongated / wide on the front end. The stomatella appear to be very short in front of their "shell" with a long back end while these are very long in front of their bulb with a short back end. I really don't think they are stomatella.

I'd love to know your thoughts. Please let me know if you need any more information.

Thank you!

Jacob

 

[kevgib67]

From the nocturnal nature and breeding I was expecting to see stomatella snails, they are hard to see but I agree they don’t seem to match. @ISpeakForTheSeas ?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

From the nocturnal nature and breeding I was expecting to see stomatella snails, they are hard to see but I agree they don’t seem to match. @ISpeakForTheSeas ?

These seem to be a Bubble Snail (Cephalaspidean) species of some kind, but I can't say which kind from the pics.

If you can get a white-light pic of the top-side that's as close-up/clear as the pic quoted below, I can probably get you a decent ID:

Without a closer pic of the top under white light, the best I can do is tell you it's most likely from the taxonomic family Haminoeidae.

 

[jbacker7]

Thank you, here you go under white light.

Haminoea vesicula is sure looking pretty close, but the ones in my tank look very purple in comparison.

 

[jbacker7]

For reference, I did start this aquarium with dry rock. The only thing hitchhikers had an opportunity to come in on would have been clean chaeto from Algae Barn and ORA pom pom xenia frags which did receive Reef Dip.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Haminoea vesicula is sure looking pretty close, but the ones in my tank look very purple in comparison.

Could you pull one out into a little container of tank water and get some closer-up pics?

 

[MAH]

That one on the glass looks like a flatworm to me.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Thank you, here you go under white light.

Haminoea vesicula is sure looking pretty close, but the ones in my tank look very purple in comparison.

Bubble snails!!!
Will you sell me some??

 

[Sesty22]

I bet some hungry Hermits will do some work on that population.

 

[goody]

They do look like smaller versions of what ISpeakForTheSeas identified my hitchhiker as a bubble snail. Photo of my larger bubble snail.