catching whelks?

[Riona]

I've got a bunch of FL live rock. It came with a bunch of little turkey wing clams (some of my faves ) which have been eaten. I've gotten a couple medium-sized whelks off the rock but think I've seen at least a couple more that have vanished into the rocks before I could get my hands into the tank. I WOULD eventually like a (few more of the little turkeys if I can find them!) a crocea or maxima so obviously having something that thinks bivalves are tasty would not be a good thing. Tank has coral, fish, and inverts in it, so (even if I wanted to kill the life I specifically got the high dollar/quality LR for) I can't just nuke it.

Should I try to get a live clam from a seafood department and see if I could keep it in a jar of some sort in the tank and snag anything that goes after it, or would they just crawl back out before I could manage to find them again do you suppose?

 

[kharmaguru]

Maybe a diy bottle trap with said department store clam as bait would work? (definitely without the cap left on the bottle lol)

 

[Riona]

Certainly couldn't hurt to try, and I do have plenty of spare bottles around. Since I don't (I think) have anything but them that'd eat the clam, would it be safe to leave one in the tank indefinitely if it's not dead after the pest snails are gone? Would they just crawl back out, or stay close to the food source until it was gone? How long could I actually leave it in the bottle, do you suppose before it died and started to pollute the tank?

 

[reefing102]

As long as the clam is alive, I don’t see any issue leaving the clam in the tank. But I would remove the pest snails as you see them because they may attempt an escape.