Just bought a few frags of gsp so it could take over the rocks but noticed one of my frags was partially closed and upon further inspection I noticed limpets on it. Are they eating it?
Just to clarify this - there are multiple kinds of snails referred to as limpets (with a hole in the top of the shell, these are Keyhole Limpets):
True limpets are from the taxonomic subclass Patellogastropoda, and they're harmless/beneficial herbivores.
Keyhole limpets are fissurellid snails from the subclass Vetigastropoda; a handful of these snails from the taxonomic subfamilies Diodorinae and Emarginulinae are known to eat SPS:
t’s rare, but there are two taxonomic subfamilies of keyhole limpets (Diodorinae and Emarginulinae) that I have found research on showing that they have a handful of species in them that are either known to or thought to occasionally eat corals (I’d need to go digging through the papers again, but, IIRC, they only ate SPS , and they had pretty specific tastes/preferences).
just to reinforce, regular limpets are fine, and most keyhole limpets (including most from the subfamilies listed above) are reef safe; to the best of current scientific knowledge, only a very small number of them are not.
The good news is that most keyhole limpets are also harmless/beneficial herbivores, and telling keyhole limpets apart from normal limpets is generally pretty easy:
To my knowledge, true limpets (taxonomic subclass Patellogastropoda) don't have a hole on top of their shell at all, but keyhole limpets (taxonomic subclass Vetigastropoda, order Lepetellida, superfamily Fissurelloidea) all have one for respiration.
This is one of those spottings that made me smile, because this cluster of limpets looked like a town meeting, and it's something I'd never observed before. Cellana tramoserica, commonly known as "variegated limpet" and "common limpet", is a species of marine gastropod mollusc (sea snail) in the...
Wow, well all I can say is keep an eye on them now that you're starting to introduce coral. Maybe even more of a reason to thin out the population as to much of anything is never good. Also watch for hairline scratches on your glass.
Wow, well all I can say is keep an eye on them now that you're starting to introduce coral. Maybe even more of a reason to thin out the population as to much of anything is never good. Also watch for hairline scratches on your glass.
www.projectnoah.org
en.wikipedia.org
