roly poly bugs on my snail?

tramboneplayer5

New member
There are several of these things on a few of my snails. There are also a few on the rocks here and there. Anyone know what these are, and if so, are they bad?
 

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https://www.researchgate.net/figure/290459929_fig1_Figure-1-Colour-morphs-of-Lepidochitona-cinereus

It looks like the cream color one in the picture. The ones in my tank are about half that size, like 4 or 5 mm total. They have the same 8 section shell and fit the description I found on other websites. There's supposed to be 1000 different species of chitons, so I'll assume what I have is some kind of chiton that is half the size of L. cinereus. Everything I found says chitons eat algae and can maybe even help keep the glass clean. Let's hope we're right!
 
I believe you are right, they are chitons and they are good for your tank. Yours maybe smaller because they aren't fully grown yet.
 
Thanks for the help, guys. Any idea why they have congregated on the snails? All the snails have three or four chitons on their shells. There are only a few chitons in the rest of the tank.
 
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