What are these critters?

[LMDAVE]

Saw these today, they are almost the size of a lady bug, up close they remind me of the Apollo 11 space capsule lol. Anyway, are these anything of concern?

 

[sfin52]

They are a type of snail. Good or bad couldn’t tell you. Not great at iding snails.

 

[Gareth elliott]

They look like a species of trochus snail to me.

 

[LMDAVE]

Thanks, saw it moving around earlier and almost looked like it had legs but when on tbe glass was more like a snail. Just so tiny compared to my CUC

 

[Supurderek]

Banded trochus! They breed readily in tank and are fantastic!

 

[LMDAVE]

Thanks! That's cool to know.

 

[Tahoe61]

Banded trochus! They breed readily in tank and are fantastic!

Did not know this.

Thanks.

 

[LMDAVE]

OK, 6 weeks later and these snails are all over my tank and on my zoanthids, and the zoas dont seem to like them! After searching more I thought these may be sundail snails, which I read are bad and should be removed as soon as I could, and they prey on zoanthids. So, I made a contraption with a turkey baster hooked to my sip[hon hosing and jsut went to town sucking them out. I removed about 100, as many as I could find with about 20 minutes with this. I jsut ran it through a net and returned the water back, and repeated. See vid (wife wife videoed the net more than the actual removal, but you get the idea.)


SO, I may have over reacted, after relooking at my picture above and looking at sundail snails, they are close. but I couldnt take any chances.

 

[Tahoe61]

Collonista versus Trochus perhaps.

 

[Oldsalt01]

Sundials are much flatter.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I'm gonna say trocus and not sundial. Zoas will close when something crawls on it but they will open right back up. Are you losing zoas?

 

[LMDAVE]

Yeah, they probably are trocus. They are definitely what is in the first picture I posted. I saw a picture of sundails and thought they may have been another name for them. My tank is fairly new. I have two zoas, blow poops and sunny Ds. The Sunny Ds were always the most healthy and wide open, but lately the outer tenticles (?) of some were shriveling up. I noticed these snails on their stems. I read the sundails prey on zoas and also go underneathe the zoas and can kill the colony. So, I guess I panicked and just started removing these.

I removed a good portion of these snails yesterday, but this morning saw about 20+ of them scattered over the live rock and on the sunny D again. I didnt mind them at first, but they are multiplying so much. If Trocus are safe then should I just leave them be? Will their multiplying ever level out?

 

[Oldsalt01]

Have you seen any Asterina starfish in the system? I've read they are generally harmless except for certain varieties, and believed that until I found a white/black one draped over a polyp on my small Red People Eater colony, happily munching on the tentacles. The polyp recovered fairly well, but I've pulled as many starfish out as possible and haven't encountered any issues since. As for the Trochus, they can be prolific given the right setting and food availability, so I'd probably try to get their numbers down. Take 'em to your LFS if they'll give you store credit.

 

[LMDAVE]

Thanks. No I haven't seen any startfish. As for the Trochus, I'll try to keep the population down, but leave a portion. I never though of selling them or getting credit. The majority of all these were just an 1/8" but I guess I would see the interest in it if they grow to desirable size eventually. But for now, I'm just trying to make sure my tank is safe and moving in the right direction.