Mysterious Snail

[MSeg]

This little guy's been in my tank since last October, and survived the tank switch when the first one started leaking. There haven't been corals in either of the two until late September, and the current ones aren't damaged or suffering at all, so it doesn't seem to be parasitic.

 

[Calappidae]

Might be a clam parasitic snail, JMO.

Hopefully more people well experienced in this will chime in.

 

[MSeg]

I suppose it's a good thing I don't plan on getting clams... Can they really survive a year without food?

 

[Calappidae]

I hightly doubt it will live.. I don't want to give wrong info so hopefully someone like don will chime in.

 

[pagojoe]

It is a parasitic eulimid, either a Balcis or Melanella species, most likely. Essentially all the eulimids are parasitic on one echinoderm or another, but they don't really kill their hosts. They show up on starfish, sea cucumbers, and even sand dollars. I don't know that it would be harmful, but it isn't really beneficial.

Cheers,



Don

 

[MSeg]

Ah. Maybe it's the teeny little green clams... Next time I see it, I'll... Dispose of it?

 

[pagojoe]

Nah, I'd leave it alone. Some close relatives will make tumors on starfish, but yours is one of the solitary species. It will either parasitize some starfish, urchin, sea cucumber, or something related in your tank, or it will starve eventually. Probably the latter, since it likely came in with live sand or rock.

Cheers,


Don

 

[MSeg]

It's got to have been feeding off of something for the past year though, right?

 

[pagojoe]

You'd think. There may be eulimid species that feed on something other than echinoderms, but I don't know of any, and there seems to be a dearth of information regarding them on the internet. If you don't have any potential hosts in your tank, it may be a species from a different family that looks almost exactly like a eulimid from the dorsum, Zebina tridentata. The lip "rounds out" though, and is slightly expanded and out of line with the rest of the shell outline in that species. The lip is also thicker. Yours looks more like a typical Melanella species, but it might be Z. tridentata instead. If so, it's a harmless rissoid.

http://www.gastropods.com/9/Shell_8249.shtml

Cheers,



Don