Snail ID

[weez1959]

Can anyone ID this snail?
It's about the size of a small pea. I have dozens in the tank right now. It's a crappy pic but maybe I'll try to get a better one tomorrow. The only snails I have are cerith and margaritas. They are the shape of the margaritas but I don't think they are offspring of those. Does that make sense? It sound stupid to me but I'm too lazy to re-phrase , going to bed now...

[zhenya]

Louise,

Can you take one out and take a picture of the aperture with animal withdrawn into the shell?
The shape of the shell reminds me of the small grazing Trochoidean snail Collonista sp..
Here's a link to the article describing this and other Trochoideans.
The Grazing Snails, Part I - Turbo, Trochus, Astraea, and Kin by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com

[Ninong]

It's about the size of a small pea. I have dozens in the tank right now.

And soon you will have hundreds! :eek3:

It's a crappy pic...

Yes, it is.

The only snails I have are cerith and margaritas.

Not anymore!

In spite of the "crappy pic," I agree with Gene that they are most probably Collonista sp. If so, then they are nocturnal, coming out an hour or so after the lights go out and then going back into hiding before "dawn."

They are grazers. Their numbers will rise and fall depending on available food sources. They will probably out-compete your other snails that you paid good money for.

In my 120-gal reef aquarium, their numbers got as high as about 800 at one time. In fact, two or three hours after the lights went out, they pretty much covered the front glass of the tank, as well as the side glass and most of the available live rock surface. Over a period of 18 months or so, their numbers fluctuated between about 800 and about 200. I would sometimes scrape them off the glass late at night and discard them. Every month or so, I would scoop out at least half a cup of them from the bottom of the sump.

They come into our tanks as hitchhikers. I didn't have any at all during the first 18 months or so that my tank was in operation but I think I imported them on some pieces of live rock that I got as part of an order of other things. The vendor, at my request, threw in three flat pieces of rock for me to use as platforms for some crocea clams. I suspect that that's how I got them.

They are not evil. It's just that their population can get so large in a very short period of time. They obviously have direct reproduction and thrive in typical reef tanks. The other drawback is that I noticed a decline in the populations of my other snails as the Collonista population swelled.

Good luck!

[weez1959]

I looked them up and you're probably right, they look exactly the same, too bad my daughter's tank was closed up, she had a puffer that would have loved them
I took another equally crappy pic, I need to learn to use my camera better