Naked turbo snail?

[Jan]

Sorry, no pic....

But this a.m. when I turned my lights on, I was surprised to see a large snail on the back wall of my tank, with no shell! :shock: He didn't seem to like the light at all, and made a dash for cover. From the size of him, I'd guess he had to be one of my turbo snails. But how could he have lost his shell and still lived? Could a hermit crab have evicted him? (My hermits look too small to have wanted a big turbo shell...)

 

[spongebob lover]

are you sure it was a snail and not a slug? .

usually nudis/slugs look like snails but without the shell dood.

 

[Jan]

I'm not sure, no. I don't know how he could have got into my tank though. And he was so big and fat.

I'll try to get a picture of him, or search for photos of nudi's. Are all nudi's bad? (I've read that some are, they eat corals or something...)

 

[returnofsid]

It's not that all nudis are bad, it's just that all nudis have very specialized diet. Each species only eats 1 or 2 different things and will die without it. They're very hard to keep alive for this reason.

 

[Cwazy Clown]

i agree with sid. so jan, find out if its a nudi and you will find out if it'll eat anything important. =)

 

[c0yote]

How about a Stomatella varia?
They're nocturnal and don't look like they have a shell

 

[Damsel13]

hi ya'll
I would bet a Stomatella

got to go to work
can't wait Jan to hear what it turns out to be.

Deb

 

[steven11]

I would go with c0yote or Damsel's guess. Stomatella are very common.

 

[burning2nd]

I thought snails where part of there shell, and cant not be removed with out death???/?

 

[Jan]

You guys nailed it, it is a Stomatella. Thanks!

The posted link with the following benefits and problems, is a bit too narrow for my understanding:

Potential Benefits:
1. One of the best snails for grazing settling tiles in the Breeder Challenge experiments. Snails larger than a nickel should not be allowed to graze settling tiles as they could potentially eat any newly settled polyps that many smaller snails will not eat.

Potential Problems:
1. Difficult to remove for harvesting, damage occuring during removal can kill them.

The part about them potentiallly eating "newly settled polyps that other snails will not eat"...what kind of polyps are we talking about? Should I try to remove this snail or let him be? He did seem to be chowing down on the algal film on my back wall.

 

[Damsel13]

Yea and they can move FAST too!

 

[c0yote]

You guys nailed it, it is a Stomatella. Thanks!

The posted link with the following benefits and problems, is a bit too narrow for my understanding:



The part about them potentiallly eating "newly settled polyps that other snails will not eat"...what kind of polyps are we talking about? Should I try to remove this snail or let him be? He did seem to be chowing down on the algal film on my back wall.

That's referring to Project DIBS's coral breeding experiments, so unless you have corals that are sexually breeding and producing very small babies you shouldn't have anything to worry about. This is one of the best snails for algae control out there.