Are these snails bad?

[Patman1]

Hello all,

I have 2 derasa clams that are doing well and growing nicely. Tonight I was looking at the tank with the lights off (75 gallon reef up for over a year) and saw a ton of pods but also about 40 to 50 small (3-4 mm) white conical shelled snails all over the sand and glass in one corner. I always see egg packets as well as baby snails of several types.... but I was worried that these might be Pyramidellidae species that could hurt my clams.....I did see 1 on one of the clam shells.....but there were other snails on the shell too.....may have just been coincidence....

I'll try to get a picture ... my digital is at work

Thanks

Pat

 

[danmhippo]

I would watch them with extreme caution. Watch closely if they are moving about the algae infested shell or are they actually reaching intot he flesh. 40-50 seems quite scary. I would play safe if I were you and manually removing all the snails look alike's.

 

[Anemone]

Watch any that climb on your clam shells. IME, you can actually see the Pyramidellidae snails feeding aparatus - a small tube (proboscis) that extends from their shell that they use to suck the fluid out of the clam. I've seen these tubes up to 1/4" long, so if you look closely you'll see them. The Pyramidellidae will also hang around near your clam's mantle - they really don't spend much time in the sand, although a similar looking snail does.

Kevin