Snail Id please

[Yates273]

I found these snail clinging to a sea wall at Jersey shore. I collected them and put in tank. I being told they are whelk snails. Any idea and did I make a mistake?
Should I remove of in fact they are whelk snails.

 

[Rick's Reviews]

Unsure of species but they may carry alot of parasites and diesease. my opinion... Not worth adding to any aquarium

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I'm not sure about the species, but if they are whelks, then you probably don't want them in your tank. Whelks typically eat other snails and bivalves (i.e. they're predators, not CUC members), so there's a good chance they'll eat your CUC snails. Also, just as a note here, if you found these guys in NJ, there's a very real chance they aren't suited for tropical reef tank temperatures, so (if you're running a tropical tank instead of a temperate/coldwater tank) they could slowly die off from the heat.

With regards to diseases and parasites, while the odds of inverts (like snails) spreading these to your other tank inhabitants are low, there is always a chance. Most people don't bother doing anything about it because the odds are so low, but the best practice from a biosecurity standpoint is to quarantine your inverts in a fishless system for the full duration of a fallow period (if you're working with tropical livestock, you can do a 45 day fallow [minimum] with the water at 81F - for temperate/coldwater livestock, I'd imagine that you'd want to go longer at substantially colder temps).

 

[ying yang]

What you could do is research / Google what snails are native to where you collected them from.
I know often gets said on r2r alot to tell difference between a whelk and a nassarious snail for example is look at the eyes and the underneath off snail,one can close itself entirely in its shell and other cannot,and something about one has eyes on stalk and one doesn't and whelks usually have more tattooed snout.
So research about what charastics whelks have.( nassarious snails are kind off whelk I read also though)
But what gets referred to as whelks in our hobby are usually predatory and nassarious vibex and Tongan nassarious snails are not.
I'm not saying yours are nassarious snail or whelks, just giving you few pointers on what I would be researching to try find out.
Ovniously safest bet would be remove all that you put in the tank.
Could do a little test if willing watch one of your new snails and another of your original snails if had any,and put in a container and see what happens, if new snail tries to murder original snail then seperate .

But research and look at ab9ve what I said about eyes and underneath to get better idea
.whelks glide/move fast also apparently.
Goodluck

Edit: got wrong way around with whelks moving fast,apparently nassarious snails faster

 

[mwil79]

Lol it's like you don't believe me

 

[ying yang]

Whelk versus Nassarius | Melev's Reef

www.melevsreef.com

Little article from melevs reef,how accurate is idk.
Just had re-read off it and says whelks have a shell at end off foot which use to make water tight seal if retreat into its shell ,ive got nassarious vibex and Tongan nassarious snails and both seem to have a yellowish hard thing at end off foot so prezume this the same thing that says in article so little confused myself ,unless I got sold none nassarious snails idk lol

 

[Yates273]

Lol it's like you don't believe me

Lol Had to cross post. I’m freaking out since I dropped like 26 in my tank. Needed advice asap. Lesson learned Like you said I should have id first.

 

[kevgib67]

They look very close to whelk snails. I found an empty bumble bee snail shell and a week later found a whelk snail eating another bumble bee snail. I had not seen it before ( I believe that they are nocturnal). I would remove them out of caution but not sure if they are native to the area you collected them.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Lol Had to cross post. I’m freaking out since I dropped like 26 in my tank. Needed advice asap. Lesson learned Like you said I should have id first.

I would definitely try to remove them from your main tank. If you want to test to see if they are predatory, you could set up a small tank for them and add another snail (one that is known to be reef safe) to see their behavior.
But even online CUC sellers are shipping out the wrong snails sometimes because it's very hard to distinguish between some safe and unsafe species.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I found these snail clinging to a sea wall at Jersey shore. I collected them and put in tank. I being told they are whelk snails. Any idea and did I make a mistake?
Should I remove of in fact they are whelk snails.

They could be some type of conch, but not all of those are safe either.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Whelk versus Nassarius | Melev's Reef

www.melevsreef.com

Little article from melevs reef,how accurate is idk.
Just had re-read off it and says whelks have a shell at end off foot which use to make water tight seal if retreat into its shell ,ive got nassarious vibex and Tongan nassarious snails and both seem to have a yellowish hard thing at end off foot so prezume this the same thing that says in article so little confused myself ,unless I got sold none nassarious snails idk lol

This article is a little misleading. There are many types of whelks. Nassarius snails are a type of whelk. Not all nassarius snails are safe for our tanks.
N. Vibex and N. Distortus are two of the only true scavengers (eating only carrion), but there are some look-a-likes that will end up killing other snails in your tank...

(Nassarius do have the opperculum on their tail like other whelks)

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

They look very close to whelk snails. I found an empty bumble bee snail shell and a week later found a whelk snail eating another bumble bee snail. I had not seen it before ( I believe that they are nocturnal). I would remove them out of caution but not sure if they are native to the area you collected them.

I agree they look like they may be whelks - as has been commented, though, differentiating between predatory whelks and safe snails can be quite difficult. As Erin1971Texas mentioned, Nassarius snails actually technically are whelks - dove snails too.

 

[Yates273]

I think I found out what they are. These are known as oyster drill snails and are native
To NJ. They are known to cling to piling sand drill through barnacles. Now I have to collect them out of my tank.

 

[Double monti 61]

I say keep them!

 

[Double monti 61]

I did not know they live in NJ what exit?

 

[Yates273]

Out of curiosity why would you keep them? After reading about them I ran downstairs to ya k out of my tank. So far I captured 23. I believe I have 3 more. 2 were actually on my fighting conch

 

[WheatToast]

Out of curiosity why would you keep them? After reading about them I ran downstairs to ya k out of my tank. So far I captured 23. I believe I have 3 more. 2 were actually on my fighting conch

Might be interesting in a species-only tank, but I would never risk one in my macroalgae system.