There is a GOOD snail called a strombus grazer, that spins thread like a spider and lowers itself from rock to rock, sometimes on glass, good little cleaner that reproduces in our tanks. It looks almost exactly like the classic large conch shell with the graceful curves, only it's about the size of a pencil eraser.
Unfortunately for those interested in sps corals (the colored sticks) there's a new guy in the trade: it looks almost exactly like a strombus grazer with three differences: the shell is 'fatter' around the large part, the open edge of the shell is very thin and flared outward, instead of a narrow-ish slit, and when you pick them up and look at that underside, the snail itself tends to bunch up in the middle of the opening, about waist-level if a snail had a waist.
If you have these, and intend to do sps, put a sacrificial montipora atop your rockwork and observe near nightfall. If you catch a snail headed for it, nab it. And frankly I'd get rid of all small snails of that description before stocking expensive sps.
How do I know? I found them munching a montipora. Ordinarily such little snails are desirables. These aren't, but they seem specific to sps, since they are NOT showing interest in the candy cane. I have been removing them as I catch them, but the likely prognosis for my tank, because they lay eggs and they've been in there a while---is either to see weeks and weeks without a problem---or to give up on the notion of sps and go back to lps, and do the bottom layer of my rockwork (lps take less light) waiting for these guys to starve out. I did lps nicely with my last set-up. Sometimes to solve a problem, you just need to change your game plan and admit that plan A won't work.
These fellows were a surprise. The montipora seems to recover, but having these fellows multiply out of hand would not portend a good future for an sps tank.
Unfortunately for those interested in sps corals (the colored sticks) there's a new guy in the trade: it looks almost exactly like a strombus grazer with three differences: the shell is 'fatter' around the large part, the open edge of the shell is very thin and flared outward, instead of a narrow-ish slit, and when you pick them up and look at that underside, the snail itself tends to bunch up in the middle of the opening, about waist-level if a snail had a waist.
If you have these, and intend to do sps, put a sacrificial montipora atop your rockwork and observe near nightfall. If you catch a snail headed for it, nab it. And frankly I'd get rid of all small snails of that description before stocking expensive sps.
How do I know? I found them munching a montipora. Ordinarily such little snails are desirables. These aren't, but they seem specific to sps, since they are NOT showing interest in the candy cane. I have been removing them as I catch them, but the likely prognosis for my tank, because they lay eggs and they've been in there a while---is either to see weeks and weeks without a problem---or to give up on the notion of sps and go back to lps, and do the bottom layer of my rockwork (lps take less light) waiting for these guys to starve out. I did lps nicely with my last set-up. Sometimes to solve a problem, you just need to change your game plan and admit that plan A won't work.
These fellows were a surprise. The montipora seems to recover, but having these fellows multiply out of hand would not portend a good future for an sps tank.
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