Do olive snails eat Nassarius snails?

I've been wondering where all of my snails have been going. I think that the olive snail plus the hermits are to blame. My friend said he saw a hermit attacking one earlier.

 

hermits do it to, just not for a living. they do it for fun and for shells. (damn hermits! - at least they also eat algae) olives will do it for the food always....they are good at killing small clams too. coquinas especially it seems. wont eat any algae though...

 

I have a question about nassarius snails. Like many newbies, we want to get the tank up & going without doing all the research we should. ( & least that applies to me )

Instead of putting in a sand bed, I put in a fine gravel. I don't think my nassarius snails can get through it. Mind you, I have never stood there for hours staring & them to see if they can get through it or not. They do seem to appear out of nowhere when I feed the tank, but I have also seen them on the glass. Will they find other sources of food is they can't get under the substrate ? I feed every other day. Maybe once a day would give my nassarius food on the surface to feed on. Any suggestions ?

 

They can get under the gravel substrate. I've had them in sand, gravel, and crushed coral, even some where the smaller pieces were between pea and marble sized, and they had no problem burrowing. They should be fine.

Cheers,




Don

 

I added these two species about a year ago. I was horrified to find out a month or so ago that the olive will engulf an entire silverside fish and dive under the sand. At first I thought it was starved but they will consume as many fish as you drop on the sand. As far as chasing the nassarius, I have seen an olive shoot up from underneath or come from behind to steal food from nassarius. However, all nass. are accounted for so far.