Zoa eating snail - help me ID

South City

New member
I was hoping that someone might be able to help me identify a snail that I'm pretty sure is eating my Zoa's. Everything in my tank is doing very well with the exception of a few colonies of Zoa's. Although I had noticed these tiny snails on the colonies that were not doing well, I didn't think they were responsible at first. But when I pulled one off a polyp and saw the tissue damage left behind, as well as several other polyps on the colony that were heavily damaged, I'm now pretty sure they are responsible. In addition to directly witnessing the one causing tissue damage, I've pretty much systematically ruled out most other causes that I can think of.(water chemistry, lighting, flow, nutrients)

I forgot to get a picture of the one that I pulled from the tank, but I found this image that is an exact match for them. They are tiny(smaller than my pinky fingernail), black with white spots. A poster in the thread on another forum where I found this picture thought they were tulip snails. But there were others in the thread that seemed pretty adamant that they weren't. I just want to get a positive ID and figure out my next step before these things multiply further and wipe out my Zoa's.(and then who knows what after that)

Physically removing them is fairly difficult. I've heard that most wrasses like to eat tiny snails. Is there a wrasse that is better at eating them than another?

Thanks!

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Thanks all. I was able to pull 5 of them out of the tank after work today. I got some pictures. I'll share them once Photobucket is back online. Apparently, Photobucket is down for maintenance at the moment.
 
One of those is on my wishlist! Can't put him in this tank though. I need to find me a wrasse that is a bit smaller and a tad bit more reef friendly! These snails are only 1/4 inch in length. Wouldn't take too big a wrasse to make a meal of them.

A Harlequin Tusk wrasse will eat those~
 
Photobucket is back up. Here are the pictures of the ones that I pulled from my tank this evening. I laid them out on a ruler to get a sense for how small they are.(about 1/4 inch each)

Do they still look like predatory whelks? I was able to get some more detail in these pictures than the earlier one.

Would a yellow coris wrasse eat these do you think? I had one for a short while a few months ago. Really liked him. If they eat small snails, I'd like to get another a bit sooner than I was originally planning.

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