Are these pyramidellidae snails?

kmk2307

Active member
I have a crab in my tank eating my snails so I ripped my tank apart today trying to get him out. All my animals are in tubs and all my rock is in my other tank. After I removed everything but the sand and some water I noticed small snails climbing up on my glass (trying to get air?). I can only assume they were living in the sandbed. I have seen some snails like these before and I thought they might be pyramidellidae snails so I threw them out. I have no Tridacna clams but I do have many bivalves on my LR and I found quite a few sand dwelling clams during my excavation today which suprized me. I suspect this picture may not have enough detail. If so, I will scan it on a much higher resolution and crop it down to just one or two snails.

Thanks!
Kevin
 
Thats what they look like. If you want a positive ID, get a closeup pic then post it in Dr. Rons forum.
 
Its the correct shape,but all the ones I have had are a very bright solid white.Those might be small Cerith snails,but I can't say for sure.
 
Those don't look like pyramidellid snails to me. The ones I had were also solid white. It's hard to tell from the picture but I think your snails are also a lot bigger than the pyramidellids. The ones I had were the equivelant to the size of a grain of rice, most were even smaller.
 
I would say these snails are the size of a grain of rice. That is a sandwich ziplock bag they are in.

Thanks,
Kevin
 
i can finally use these pics :)

here's a pic i took a while ago of a pyramidellid snail on the left that i pulled off a clam, and another snail on the right i had in my sandbed by the hundreds. the second pic is the 'sandbed' snails next to a penny.

i have since noticed the 'sandbed' snails parasitizing my other snails and will do anything to get rid of them. so far i siphoned out all my sand (i wanted to do that anyway) and i pick them out whenever i see them. i have a 6-line that does nothing, i'm thinking of moving him to another tank and getting a leopard wrasse.

p_snails.jpg


SnailSmall.jpg
 
Mandrix-Great pics!Those sandbed snails must be almost microscopic.Dr. Ron should be able to identify then from those pics.
 
What kind of snails did you see them attacking? Also, what kind of camera do you have? I wish mine could do that!

Thanks,
Kevin
 
Hi Matty! Some nice "micro shell" pictures! Those "sandbed" snails appears to be a Rissoid. Not 100% certain but, if so, there are hundreds of species and they're cosmopolitan in distribution.
Whatever they are, thanks for sharing your observations and pics!

Cheers,
Bob
 
they seem to attack any snail i have in there, mostly astreas and turbos. they even suck on tiny hitchhiker limpets that i used to have thousands of, now i have just a few hundred. i added a queen conch 2 weeks ago and they haven't bothered it yet, but i got my eyes on it to make sure.

i used a coolpix 995 to take those pics. the first one i took in full sunlight which is why it has the overexposed glare, but that was the easiest way i could get enough light to get the aperature small enough to get the whole thing in focus that close. i think i also had to crank the iso up which is why it's so grainy. i want a new camera for some reason (not sure why exactly, just a nagging feeling whenever i walk by a digicam display), but i'll never be able to give up the 995 macro mode...
 
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