Snail started moving on old liverock - but what kind?

[badluckman]

So I've seen this shell on an old liverockpiece for the last months becoming more and more "loose" from the main rock and this morning it had actually moved away to a new rock! Amazing that they can come back to life after being in the dry for so many years.

Anyone know what typ of snail it is? Most importantly - is it safe to keep? I've never seen a slower snail than this one, and that scares me a little. Moves about 1mm/hour.

 

[dbowman5]

are you sure it is not just being moved by the water?

 

[badluckman]

Oh yes, 100%. It's really hard to remove from where it is, and it's currently attached itself to the glass of the tank.
Excuse the lack of cleaning, deathly scared of pulling a grain of sand into the cleaner so it only gets a monthly scrub down there.

 

[35ppt]

Redacted

 

[minus9]

Nerite for sure. They're found in tidal zones, so they can live out of water for a good stretch. If you don't have a lid, then you might find it outside your tank at night when they're active.

 

[badluckman]

Resembles a member of the family Neritidae, (5) Nerita polita...

Awesome, thank you!

That seems like the correct snail, I took it out and compared to some more pictures and it's very likely to be that Nerita polita. The shell is smooth, but has ridges under a coating of some kind.

Nerite for sure. They're found in tidal zones, so they can live out of water for a good stretch. If you don't have a lid, then you might find it outside your tank at night when they're active.

12 years in a dry, dusty attic isn't too long it seems ;Woot
No lid, so I guess i'll be snailhunting every morning to make sure it stays in there. By far the oldest resident in there so I'd better take care of it.

 

[minus9]

My guess is that it was on something else that was introduced and not sitting dry for 12 years.

 

[badluckman]

My guess is that it was on something else that was introduced and not sitting dry for 12 years.

I'd think the same, and unless I actually saw it "emerge" from the rock I wouldn't believe it. It looked like it was part of the rock 3 months ago, then it started to regain the darker color and the edges of the shell started to become visible. Then suddenly it moved away. Is it possible that it just shut itself in and went "dormant" waiting for water? Kind of like a frog that freezes itself I'm thinking.

This rock has given me many weird hitchhikers though. Guy I bought it from said it had a "worm" in it when I picked it up, and it was a 40cm long bobbit.. Still gives me nightmares. Wish I had actually kept it wet. There was lots of tiny colonies of weird corals on it (The one I remember the strongest was some tiny white polyps that looked like daisys encrusting all over, about the size of asterina) but back then I didn't care for seaflowers and only wanted fish. ;Facepalm

 

[35ppt]

Redacted

 

[badluckman]

Never heard of that for snails. I think I remember reading that they can breath air but it would need some way of keeping moist and would need to have a food source.

Interesting. It's a pretty crappy barn that it's been stored in so moist could get in, and it's been next to sheep food most of the time. Thing is that it was so solidly in the rock I can't imagine that it moved around up there scrounging for food.

The tubeworms came back to life as well after a while, hundreds of them. Though I guess they could've come on a fragplug. Not sure if it was before or after I went to the LFS I spotted them first.

 

[SMSREEF]

The timeline is not clear?

did you buy this 12 years ago and put in your barn and it stayed dry in your posession

or did you buy it 3 months ago and someone told you it was dry for 12 years?

 

[badluckman]

The timeline is not clear?

did you buy this 12 years ago and put in your barn and it stayed dry in your posession

or did you buy it 3 months ago and someone told you it was dry for 12 years?

Sorry, I'm very good at being unclear when I type in English.

I bought it maybe 14 years ago in total, ran a FOWLR tank for about 2 years. After that I stored the rock in the barn for 12 years dry. I scrubbed it and put it in my new tank when I started again in the hobby this winter, maybe 6-7months ago in total if I remember right. I'm terrible with time ;Woot

 

[SMSREEF]

I’m not clear when I write posts and English is my first language, so please don’t worry about that.

I’m not sure a snail would live after 12 years dry.

Is it possible this snail moved onto the rock close to the day you added it to your tank? maybe it moved the day you added the rock and was eating something in the 12 year old rock during the 3 months.

 

[badluckman]

I'm with you on that one. There's no way a marine snail survived 12 years in such a habitat without some sort of suspended animation going on.

I'm not sure if it's possible that it moved onto there, though I can't be certain. Question is where did it come from? Since I had everything I needed to start up at home except salt, sand and testkits, that's the only thing I ordered when setting it up.

Seems weird that the shell would get attached to the rock though, and I can't imagine I missed it when checking the fragplugs because it's quite large. Didn't add any rock from anywhere else except constructed dryrock until about 1½ month ago either. The CUC I got didn't include any nerits either, hence the ID request. It was a mix of snails in it, but they all had jagged shells and none was even close to as smooth as this one is.

I'm guessing wildly here but is it possible that there might have been snail eggs that survived the dry period? Maybe one took up residence in the old shell and managed to loosen it from the rock? The only weird thing then would be how the shell regained its color as it went from white calcish color to the pictures above.

 

[HB AL]

There’s no way a snail on a rock stored dry in an attic for 12 years survived let alone pretty much anything else surviving in an attic for 12 years dry. Trust me whatever you are seeing alive did not come from the rock that was in an attic dry for 12 years! Just think about it no matter what you think happened it’s not possible in this case.

 

[badluckman]

So the nerite must've hitchhiked in from something and adopted the shell from the rock afterwards? It would make the most sense, with lots of food it could easily grow big enough to take it. There's baby turbos 1/4th of its size already scurrying around too.

That lets me rest easier. This whole thing had me worried of what would appear next.. ;Woot