Killer Snails

[willper]

I was under the impression that Nassarius Snails cleaned the sand bed and deterius from the tank, but did not attack other creatures in the tank. Last week I put a Peppermint Shrimp from my QT into my main display. Within a minute one of the Nassarius snails erupted from the sand and crawled up on the Shrimp and held it down while it was consumed. A minute later the other two Nassarius snails came out to help. It took me a few minutes to get my camera set up, and here are the pics.

Even the Dottyback wants some action.

Finally, his relative the cleaner joins in when the others leave.

This was amazing to watch.

 

[willper]

missed the last picture

missed the last picture

Sorry about that. Missed the last picture.

 

[cwoods8]

they can sense weak individuals...........mind you.......they do come from a highly family!
always exceptions 2 the rule.......still gotta love them nassarius!!

 

[bobbyblank]

I have had nothing but problems with mine, i have tried them twice. Both times, they hunted and killed all my turbo snails. In the tank and the sump.

 

[Tilmo2180]

Worst I haver seen from them is stealing food from my Ricordea, it was mean. That Ricordea worked so hard and finally got the mysis to its mouth, then it was sucked out of its mouth and eaten by the snail...sad really.

 

[bristlew0rm]

Nassarius snails will only attack weaked animals ... I've seen them attack fish, shrimp, snails, crabs -- but just like your dottyback, there's usually something else also attacking at the same time.

One time I lowered the salinity on a reef system too quickly, and the cleaner shrimp were the first to show stress, and it was an immediate feeding frenzy (almost 6 different fish, snails, crabs started attacking the shrimp).

I've seen nassarius snails in hundreds of tanks, and I think that them killing turbo snails is also an anomaly.