Hitchhiker whelk?

[wet dreamer]

So as you know my 220gal has been cycling for about 2.5 weeks with 300 lbs of live rock and I am still daily trying to catch a green mantis shrimp that I have only seen once...argh! Anyways I am pretty sure I found my second bad hitchhiker, a whelk. It looks different than the small astrea snails I have found so far and is definitely larger. It is about 1 inch and I believe it is Gemophos tinctus a gastropod eater after searching whelk info. I assume this means it will eat my other snails and should be removed. So I have placed him in the sump for now. This leads me to a few questions:

Are all whelks bad cause it sure is pretty and I am only making my best guess on species cause its shell is totally covered in coralline?

Does this snail have any purpose? If not it might become my new bait for the mantis trap.

[leebca]

I don't have any answers for you on this subject. If you want, place a post in the Reef Forum where they deal with invertebrates, or if you want, tell me and I'll move the post there.

[chrisfont23]

So as you know my 220gal has been cycling for about 2.5 weeks with 300 lbs of live rock and I am still daily trying to catch a green mantis shrimp that I have only seen once...argh! Anyways I am pretty sure I found my second bad hitchhiker, a whelk. It looks different than the small astrea snails I have found so far and is definitely larger. It is about 1 inch and I believe it is Gemophos tinctus a gastropod eater after searching whelk info. I assume this means it will eat my other snails and should be removed. So I have placed him in the sump for now. This leads me to a few questions: Are all whelks bad cause it sure is pretty and I am only making my best guess on species cause its shell is totally covered in coralline?Does this snail have any purpose? If not it might become my new bait for the mantis trap.

Whelks are bad. Get rid of them. What else is in that tank- after 2 1/2 weeks the nitrite or ammonia alone should kill them for you.

[wet dreamer]

What else is in the tank? Let's see there are 4 brain corals (I think) one is pink, one orangish, and the other 2 neon green. There are at least 30 clams, some astrea and cerith snails, spotted a small urchin yesterday, at least 30 feather dusters, at least 6 different variation of sea squirt/tunicate, a bunch of different types of macro algae, I have spotted 1 limpet, and the pods are slowly growing in numbers too(cuz I keep catching em in my mantis trap), and of course a green mantis shrimp. I remove the whelks as I see them on the glass (found 2). Also, a couple aiptasia, argh!

I have introduced no life in the tank, this is all hitchhiker to my live rock. I did water changes back to back daily for almost a week when I introduced the rock to keep everything alive. My ammonia was at .25 yesterday and my nitrites at .1 and that seems to have settled in somewhat over the last few days. Other than some hair algae starting to form on the back glass everything seems to be okay. Some of the sponges I missed removing even seem to coming back to life.

Here is a pic

[Reefing Madness]

Looking GREAT!!!