Whelk or Nas?

[reefnate21]

Found this snail on top of my dead dragonette that I only had for 3 days and it was eating frozen and i stocked my tank with 5000+ pods everyday so there is no way it could have starved is this thing a whelk? It has that armour plate on its tail

 

[tbrown]

Nassarius snails eat dead things. If the snail goes under the sand, it's probably a Nassarius. If it doesn't it's probably a whelk.

My experience with new fish is if they can die fairly easily in the first week or so. It could have been sick and died even if it was eating.

Hopefully it's a Nassarius and the Dragonette just died, but that's not a good outcome either. Sorry for your loss.

 

[stoney7713]

My experience, I only trust the small nassarius. The large ones have gone after other snails. Verified they were Nassarius too.

But they won't attack a healthy living fish. Something happened to it, not snail related.

 

[kevgib67]

My nassarius snails actively clean up any carcasses. I had a whelk hitchhiker. I began seeing empty bumblebee snail shells and then caught it red handed. It was actively hunting down the snails. I took it to the whelk farm where it could spend the rest of its days running through the fields and chasing rabbits with it’s fellow whelk snails. It makes me smile picturing it there, it warms my heart to know it is happy!

 

[reefnate21]

My experience, I only trust the small nassarius. The large ones have gone after other snails. Verified they were Nassarius too.

But they won't attack a healthy living fish. Something happened to it, not snail related.

Okay thank you yea the dragonette looked stressed out from the day I got him and would barley hunt pods and would only eat what I was spot feeding him

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

It has that armour plate on its tail

Contrary to the (otherwise great) article from Melev's Reef, ALL whelks have an operculum on their tail, not just the predatory ones. (Nassarius are a type of whelk...)