Snails that produce like a spider web to catch food

[Ed Hahn]

I have a problem snail. I was wondering how other people defeated them. This snail will shoot a web that will suffocate corals or irritates them. Is there another animal that feeds on this animal?

thanks in advance,
Ed

 

[surf_buddy]

I have this same problem... I stirred up some sand yesterday and all of a sudden I had snail snot all over the place! I even have of these little snot rockets hitching along on an asteria snail. Tagging along since I need to address this as well.

 

[Curtswearing]

vermetid snails are easily removed by scraping their shell off the rock with a screwdriver. Just throw 'em in your sump.

 

[preons]

I agree that your snail is probably a stationary vermetid snail that sends out sticky strands to catch food and sucks it back in to eat it. However they just seem to cause your tank to get all sticky on your corals and other snails passing by. I also take a small screw driver to them but I just scramble them up. I barely feel bad about it.

 

[kent e]

Do not put it in your sump. They multiply like crazy. Kill it any way that you can.

 

[danno14]

Copper banded butterfly fish seem to wipe them out.....if one
fits into your biotope.

 

[Jan]

what works the best for me is plugging up their hole with super glue or epoxy. If I try cutting off the tube they still come back

 

[atlantisaquatic]

I found that fragging pliers work well to get the majority of the snail and tubes off... smashes 'em up pretty well too. The bummer about trapping them in their tube is that they can rot and foul up the water some... but I'm sure you know that Ed...
The 'ole syringe/hypodermic full of kalkwasser does some significant damage too.

 

[gary shandling]

Removing the annoying ones would be a great start. Sometimes in a new setup you might see a burst of them and if they stock around and get worse then you might have other trouble.

 

[jnarowe]

they can over-take your system too Ed. There have been some nightmare stories about this so what I do is whenever I am aquascaping or see a problem, I nip them off with a coral nipper. I had a really large one make camp in the middle of the trumpets I got from Colleen. They did not do any damage to the coral, but I know that they are at the minimum annoying and can turn into a real infestation.

I just pulled the coral head, and detroyed the snail. This one had grown to a very large size with teh majority of its calceferous tube deep inside the colony, so it took a while to deal with and it was about the size of an earthworm.

My advice: no need to panic, but I would exterminate with extreme prejudice.