shredded snails !

[Paradi]

hi people, i found 3 snails killed today, the shel in one side of the tank , the body ( shredded ) in other side, what could kill those guys ? i have 2 yellow tangs, one damsel and 2 cleaner shrimps

 

[pagojoe]

Hmmm, it may be possible that one of your fish decided to do this, or that something happened with your water parameters that caused the snails to detach from their shells, which were then shredded once they were no longer protected by a shell... but I'm guessing you don't have a complete list of the animals in your tank. I suppose you'd know it if you had a hitchhiking octopus in your tank, but they tend to do exactly the things you described: they will pull the snail from the shell, "shred" it and partially eat it, and leave pieces of the dead animal scattered in your tank. There are several other predators that may extract the snails, but few that would extract three in one day. If you discover what's killing the snails, please let us know. (Check at night, with a flashlight, and see if you can't catch the snail killer out in the open.)

Cheers,



Don

 

[Paradi]

oh thank you, well my PH has been 7.4 lately, due to cycle, could this detach the snail out of its shell ? i dont have octopus or baby octopus, fishes r tiny nemos, 2, i dont know, another snail died same death today

 

[John99]

Sounds like it could be a mantis shrimp?

 

[pagojoe]

Well, I'm a snail guy, not a reef chemistry expert, but there were other threads on here about contamination causing snails to lose their shells, so that might be what happened. As far as I know, mantis shrimp will generally break the shells to remove the animals. Most of the other snail-eaters will either dissolve the animal and remove it, or extract it whole and eat it, without leaving it shredded. It is difficult to remove a live, or even fresh-dead animal from a Turbo or Astraea shell, so it's hard to figure that the fish are able to extract the animals. I assume the shells are intact, or are they broken/decapitated?

Cheers,



Don

 

[Opcn]

If the snail died its rotting body would be shredded by the current.

 

[pagojoe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10048077#post10048077 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Opcn
If the snail died its rotting body would be shredded by the current.

It would? I don't think any of mine were ever shredded by current, or even extracted from the shell...they just oozed slime when I picked them up if they were already dead, and nothing had extracted them.