What Killed My Snail? with pic

[Beverly]

Over the last few months, have had a variety of snail deaths in my 120g. In an effort to reduce them, have boned up on reef chemistry, found a new home for a snail eating dwarf flameback angel, and removed two different hitchhiker snails. All have had positive results.

However, I am still finding dead snails in one specific place in my bare bottom 120g when the lights go on. These snails are either picked clean with no body visible or there is a jelly-like substance around the partially decaying body. There is also a jelly-like substance surrounding the dead snail that collects detritus as well as fine wispy jelly stuff that also captures detritus.

Pic of the snail I found this morning. Notice the wisps of jelly surrounding the snail and the detritus caked to the snail's side:

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/120g-deadsnail-1.jpg

Any idea what might be killing these red banded astrea snails? If so, how can I catch/kill the snail killer?

Have also posted this on RC. TIA for any insight into this problem :smile:

[props]

i caught my peppermint shrimp muching on a couple of snails at night time =o/

[Beverly]

No shrimp of any kind in the tank. Fish, coral are not affected. None of the other dead snails found in other parts of the tank were jellied up like this one and the others found in the exact same place.

[muck]

Found on another board:

I found the culprit of the Astrea snail deaths in my Reef tank. I had
(emphasis on past tense) a large worm (18 inches long, 1/4 inch in
diameter) that I caught devouring one of my snails last night. This
beast was hunter orange with a hint or red, and had a row of feet down
both of its sides. It was lightning fast, so I had to remove the
rock that it was burrowed into, from the tank. The only way I could
get rid of it was to drop Kalkwasser with an eyedropper into the
burrow where it was hiding, and then it slithered right out (freaked
my wife out, who was helping me <grin> - she's a good sport).

Anyway, if you have such a beast, beware.

[Beverly]

Interesting, Ryan, and freaky at the same time :eek: Can you tell me which board and thread your quote came from? Maybe I can talk to this guy.

[muck]

Its from 1994 though...
http://www.thekrib.com/Marine/pests.html

[Beverly]

Thanks for the link. Eleven years old, though.... Maybe the guy's dead by now :neutral:

[andestang]

Its probably a Oenone Fulgida worm. I had one a few years back and it pretty well cleaned up on all my snails :confused: I found where its lair was and had to remove the rock it was in and stick it in fresh water to kill it. (along with my live rock) Hope this helps :biggrin:

[Beverly]

Ande,

I think you are right. Here's an article about reef worms:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-04/rs/index.htm

My worm:

Oenone are nocturnal predators on snails and clams, and perhaps some other animals. They appear to extend from their burrow, and as they approach their prey they apparently secrete some mucus that covers the prey. This mucus may simply smother the prey, or it may contain some venom or narcotizing agent. After the prey is immobilized the worm extends a proboscis from the bottom of the head into the mucus and the jaws grasp the body of the prey. The jaws may also cut the attachments of the body to any shells, or alternatively the mucus may contain an agent that chemically severs the attachment. In any case, the prey's body is ingested. When the aquarist investigates the scene the next morning, all that typically remains is an empty snail or clam shell covered in a blob of mucus. Not many other predatory animals in marine aquaria typically leave behind such remains, consequently a dead, empty, shell covered with mucus is considered to be good evidence of the presence of an Oenone.

I'm not usually up very late and the worm probably does its dirty deads while I'm fast asleep. The dead snails are located near a small group of rock. Am thinking of setting up a bucket of 1/2 tankwater and half kalk/RO and placing all the rock in the group into the bucket. Unfortunately, there are mushrooms and button polyps on some of the rock. Think the tankwater/kalk/RO mix will remove the worm and not hurt the corals very much?

[Beverly]

Just mixed up a small sample of 2 parts tankwater with 3 parts kalk/RO. pH is 10.10 and SG is 1.013. Later this afternoon when Chris comes home, am going to dismantle the rock in the small pile and soak the two rocks I suspect the worm might be in. If I don't find it in those two, will move onto the other low rocks, then work my way up the pile.

Am somewhat concerned about the button polyps and shrooms on two of rocks the worm might be in. Thoughts, comments, concerns :question:

[Aquattro]

Its probably a Oenone Fulgida worm.

Exactly!! I had one of these, killed snails a couple of times a week. Slimey jelly coating all over the empty shells. I never caught it, tried dipping the rock in soda water, broke the rock into 5 pieces, ended up getting rid of it.

These worms actually burrow under the sand in tunnels of slime they create. Mine was about 2 feet long....

[Beverly]

Brad,

Mine will be in rock as we have no sandbeds.

Do you think my kalk/RO/tankwater concoction will do an good? Should probably put a small powerhead in there to get good circulation throughout the rock. Maybe even heat the stuff up to 85F or so, too? Could even make the mix 1 part tankwater, 2 parts RO/kalk, but risk to the corals is even higher.

Thoughts?

[muck]

Why don't you try pouring club soda into the suspected burrow first. Hopefully that will flush it out and not do any damage to your mushrooms and button polpys.

Oenone fulgida are not too hard to remove from a system, but it takes diligence. They most often live in burrows in rock, and enter aquaria in uncured rocks, and being nocturnal, the hobbyist has to search for them in the middle of the night. Using a red flashlight is best, as they will rapidly withdraw in the beam of a normal flashlight. They will appear as long worms stretched out and over the rocks. Once an Oenone individual is presumed to be living in a tank, the hobbyist must watch it withdraw in order to see where its burrow is found. After the rock with the burrow is located, the rock must be removed and the animal flushed from its burrow using a flood of carbonated water (soda pop works well). The worm is then discarded, and the rock replaced in the aquarium.

[Aquattro]

Well, a bucket of soda water didn't bring mine out, so I'm not sure what will. If it was my rock, I'd take off what I wanted to keep, and toss the rock. I lost a lot of sleep trying to catch mine. He lived in a rock also, but would extend out about 18" to grab snails and pull them back to the lair....

[Beverly]

Brad,

Sounds like a good plan if I knew which freaking rock the worm lived in :evil: How long did you soak your worm rock in soda water?

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Bev,

If I lived in Edmonton, I'd volunteer to watch your tank for you since I'm usually up till past 2am working on the computer anyways. Good luck. Remember, no mercy. Kill the b@st@rd worm. :evil:

Maybe even try baiting a stocking/netting trap with a couple of snails. Remove all the remaining snails from the tank & after a couple of days of hunger, place one or two inside a ball of stocking/netting & see if the worm entangles itself in it.

Good luck & happy hunting.

Anthony

[Beverly]

Anthony,

Definitely will kill the thing if it comes out of the rock :snipersm: :2gunfire:

Would love to catch all the snails in the tank, but there are over 60 of them (remaining :evil: ) in a 120g. Gonna be too hard to catch them all, though. And only have a 37g up and running to put them in.

Got the kalk/RO mix already heated. Am ready for Chris to walk in the door pretty soon, so we'll be at it for awhile. Hope that evil monster snail slimer comes out is all I can say :snipersm: :2gunfire:

[mark]

Wondering if bigger version of what I got. Haven't noticed slime but will go after snails and had a couple fatalities. Rather than reposting pictures here's a link:
http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=42899&highlight=

[SeaShell]

Hi guys, I'm new here but read about the eaten snail problem and thought I'd pass along my experience!

Snails kept disappearing in my tank. I'd find the shells, no body in them, and NO slime.

Years ago I had purchased what I called a "horney snail" his shell was kind of oblong and he had sharp spiky horns all over him.

He had an offspring, it turns out this type of snail eats other snails and as soon as I realized what was going on, I called the offspring "Son of Snail". I caught Son of Snail attached to my other snails more than once but didn't think twice about it.

I removed them both a few weeks ago and I've not had one death since.

Hope that adds another dimension to the problem!

[muck]

Hi guys, I'm new here but read about the eaten snail problem and thought I'd pass along my experience!

Snails kept disappearing in my tank. I'd find the shells, no body in them, and NO slime.

Years ago I had purchased what I called a "horney snail" his shell was kind of oblong and he had sharp spiky horns all over him.

He had an offspring, it turns out this type of snail eats other snails and as soon as I realized what was going on, I called the offspring "Son of Snail". I caught Son of Snail attached to my other snails more than once but didn't think twice about it.

I removed them both a few weeks ago and I've not had one death since.

Hope that adds another dimension to the problem!
Welcome to the board Seashell!! :cool:
Sounds like you had an experience with a whelk. They are often mislabeled as a conch.

[StirCrazy]

Exactly!! I had one of these, killed snails a couple of times a week.

ya, in the damn rock you gave to me :eek:

Steve

[andestang]

Anthony,

Definitely will kill the thing if it comes out of the rock :snipersm: :2gunfire:

Would love to catch all the snails in the tank, but there are over 60 of them (remaining :evil: ) in a 120g. Gonna be too hard to catch them all, though. And only have a 37g up and running to put them in.

Got the kalk/RO mix already heated. Am ready for Chris to walk in the door pretty soon, so we'll be at it for awhile. Hope that evil monster snail slimer comes out is all I can say :snipersm: :2gunfire:


I sense a little anger :lol: :mrgreen: Good luck Bev - do post some pics if you get it in one peice or so :wink:

[Beverly]

Had everything set up for the kalk mix/tankwater bath for when Chris came home. Three parts kalk to two parts tankwater. pH 10.20, didn't get salinity.

Bathed 4-5 rocks separately in the bath for at least 15 mins each, powerhead and heater going. Killed some mysids and a small bristleworm. Saw no sign of the killer worm :evil:

Decided our venture was a failure and talked about what we could do next. Since we do not know which rock harbours the bad guy :evil: :evil: :evil: , we chose to set up a 5g, put a suspicious piece of rock and a snail in it, and wait for a snail (either in the 120g or 5g) to be killed. Sounds cruel, but, dang, they're dying anyway :cry:

If we happened to pick the right rock right off the bat and the snail in the 5g is killed and slimed, into boiling water the rock will go and we'll re-cycle it. If a snail in the 120g is killed, then we remove the rock from the 5g and replace it with one from the 120g. We will keep switching rock until we get the killer worm :evil:

Seems like a lot of freaking trouble, but neither of us are up in the night to observe which rock the worm comes out of. Too bad it wasn't active during the day or I'd get the little baddy :2gunfire: :snipersm:

BTW, the shrooms and button polyps came out of the experience alright.

Anyway, that's my update :neutral:

[Aquattro]

Bev, I found my worm lived directly where the empty shells were.

[Beverly]

Good, Brad, because that's the rock that's now in the 5g with the snail.

The strange thing about that rock, and several others we have in the 120g, was that they came from a tank heavily infested with valonia. Tried as I might to get rid of the stuff, it just kept coming back twice as bad as before :evil:

To finally rid the rock of the valonia, I boiled each rock for 5 mins, essentially killing EVERYTHING on the rock :sad: Put the dead rock in my trusty 20g to recure it, then used it as base rock in the 120g when we eventually set it up. It doesn't make sense that there would be a worm in it, not after all that boiling. I wouldn't think worms would move from rock to rock if it already has a pretty good home to begin with.

Oh, well. We'll wait and see.

No dead snails this morning, but I doubted there would be after seeing how picked clean the snail I found yesterday was. Worm probably put on 10 lbs eating that snail and can't get out of its hole :evil: :razz:

[muck]

Any luck yet Bev? :confused:

[Beverly]

Ryan,

Haven't had the chance to take down the reef and inspect the rock. I'm not in a big hurry right now to do it, have many things on my plate until the end of the month when my daugher is getting married :eek: :biggrin:

Don't think the worm is all that hungry seeing as it just devoured a whole snail just a few days ago. When I look back on the snail deaths in that tank, very few were slimed. I'm hoping there will be a break in slime deaths, at least until we're able to spend time on that tank.

BTW, no other snail deaths lately for other reasons :biggrin:

[Samw]

Hi Bev.

Did you ever find your snail killer? Recently, I've had dozens of Trochus snails die that I've had for years. Last week, during the day, I saw a zebra hermit and some bristleworms eating a freshly dead snail. Just now, I am watching a zebra hermit and some bristleworms eat another freshly dead snail. Then I remembered what happened. The snail that they are eating was a snail that I knocked off the glass with the cleaning magnet just hours earlier. I knock snails off the glass often when I'm cleaning the glass and in the past (before I added the zebra hermit crab into the tank) they've always gotten back up. So the fact that I just recently added the zebra hermit to my tank and that the dead snails started to appear recently and that most of the dead snails were found near the front glass of the tank and that I found the hermit eating the snail that I just knocked off the glass hours earlier made me conclude that the zebra hermit is my snail killer. I had scarlet and blue legged hermits previously and I never had this problem with snails being killed. So I'm going to take out the zebra hermit now.

[Beverly]

Whoa! Really old thread, Sam :)

I did a series of videos on catching an Oenone worm. The worm we fianlly caught wasn't what we thought we had. Here's the video of the worm we caught...

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/v-120g-brown-worm-apr-29-06.wmv
April 29, 2006
(320 x 240 pixels, 7.1 MB, 2:18 minutes)

Read Dr. Ron Shimek's Reefkeeping Magazine's article, "The Large Worm Turns"...
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-04/rs/index.php

As it turned out, we had a bunch of other snail deaths in August 2006. Probably a snail or two a week died for about a month or so, always in the same part of the tank. Was really distressed about the deaths, since we thought we'd caught our snail eater. We did nothing about the deaths, except remove the dead snails. Then, no more snail deaths. Stumped me to no end.

The only two things I can think that may have happened are that our solarensis fairy wrasse wasn't getting his daily scallop any more and he/she may have been killing or eating fallen snails, or that the snails had been in our various tanks over the years, were old and simply died. Or maybe a combination of the two.

Anyway, haven't had a snail death since then.

Hopefully you have IDed the culprit, the zebra hermit, in your snail deaths. We haven't kept hermit crabs since our first tank back in the late 90s.

[draco]

You live in edmonton go to big als aquariums and get a bristol worm trap they say you can catch up to 12" worms

[untamed]

I'm too late to save your worm...but if anyone else manages to catch one of these alive I would gladly take it.

In my mind, you had something there that was a lot more interesting than snails.

I've reached the same conclusion about mantis shrimps. Hermit crabs and snails are pretty cheap and available! In my tank, they're food!

...just offering an alternative opinion. Everyone wants different things from their tank.

[Sebae]

I had a zebra hermit that would kill a snail if it wanted a bigger shell. After a while he developed a passion for snail meat. He quickly went on a trip to the sump hotel.