Clams and nassarius snails?

[Kennyboy1984]

Do nassarius snails pose any threat to clams placed in the sandbed? I remember a few months ago a had a thriving clam population going strong for about a year. Then they all started dying one by one. All the other corals were fine. Didn't add any nipping fish. The only thing new I remember adding were a few nassarius snails. Could that have been the cause of my clams demise? I read in someone profile quote that nassarius snails are not clam safe. Is this true?

 

[a4twenty]

nassarius snails are clam safe, whelks look a lot like nassarius snails and are not clam safe. here is a link to melevs identification page that describes the difference.

 

[Strack]

I can say I know the difference of the two snails and my 5 nassarius I have sucked the meat right out of my baby maxima. Clam was perfectly healthy but REALLY small. Matter of fact, three snails on it completely covered the entire clam. I walked in at the precise time it all happened. Looked like the baby clam got a large grain of sand between it's shell when it tried to close from the snails. It couldn't and the snails killed it within seconds. seconds later, they sucked the clam dry. It was horrible to watch...
These most definitely are nassarius snails because they never come out of the sand until I feed the tank.

 

[cristhiam]

It could be something else, how's your water parameters and lights, I have about 60 nassarios (large white ones and the small ones shown on melevs website) snails and 4 clams, two on the sand and two on the rocks.

 

[Lake75]

I think they're perfectly safe.

I've got 5 super Tonga nassarius (the large, white ones) and about 15 nassarius vibex (smaller, greyish ones) in my tank with 4 clams, two of which sitting on the sand. Never had a problem with my nassarius intentionally attacking the clams. They only consume a clam when it's on its way out and that happened to me once with a one inch maxima.

 

[geives1]

Funny you mention the nassarius doing that. I had two of them devour a feather duster Iabout 1hr or two after I put it in the tank! But they have left my clam alone.