What. Is. This?!?!
- Thread starter KMench
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Sorry no help here. I live by the adage of if I don't know what it is, it doesn't go in or it comes out. But then I'm a chicken!
Coastie Reefer
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Hard to see, but looks like it could be a nassarius snail..
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KMench
Valuable Member
So I added nassarius snails a while ago and I was fallow.... so they laid eggs and these could be offspring? I only started seeing these small fellas recently. But I did add a ten pound bag of “live sand” about a mo they ago so I can’t be sure if they are offspring or a hitchhiker.
Brew12
Electrical Gru
Most live sand won't have any non bacterial life. It is more like taking dry sand, wetting it down, and dumping a bottle of BioSpira on it.
The only way live sand will bring in life is if you get a special order from someone who collects it from the ocean.
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KMench
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That’s what I figured. Just didn’t want to rule it out for the one in a million chance... so although the Shell looks different from my other nassarius, that’s what the concensus is?
Coastie Reefer
Valuable Member
I think your best bet is to try and grab it and take a better picture of it out of the water. That way the true experts can provide a positive ID.
Snail #1 looks more like a whelk than a nassarius to me, though I can't say why.
Snail #2 isn't a cowrie, but might be something along the lines of an olive.
Question on my mind is where did you get your liverock, with such a delightful array of hitchhikers!
~Bruce
Snail #2 isn't a cowrie, but might be something along the lines of an olive.
Question on my mind is where did you get your liverock, with such a delightful array of hitchhikers!
~Bruce
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KMench
Valuable Member
Here’s another picture. I swear they’re eating my corals. I just pulled three off my birdsnest. They’re nowhere else to be found typically except on my SPS which have mysteriously started dying. I’m probably crazy making this assumption but I’m to the point of grasping at straws for other reasons
Brew12
Electrical Gru
I really am not good at snail ID. The biggest fear would be if it is an Epitonium sp. since those are coral eaters. The shape of the shell is right but the coloration isn't like anything I can find. Finding something like a snail or crab "eating" a dying coral is a bit of a chicken and egg discussion. Is the snail eating the coral causing it to die, or is it eating the decaying tissue and algae growing on the dying coral. 
I doubt it is a nassarius snail if it is on coral. They normally hide in the sand bed.
They don't look pointy enough to me to be a cerith but the bands look like my ceriths.
I doubt it is a nassarius snail if it is on coral. They normally hide in the sand bed.
They don't look pointy enough to me to be a cerith but the bands look like my ceriths.
