Hundreeds of baby Nerites!!!!

It happened to me before, that I notice a little white spec on the glass and after inspecting and finding its form is spherical, I get the magnifying glass and sure enough, it's a baby Nerite. It looks white with little noticeable grayish spots around the shell area. Then, after the first sighting they're never seen again.

Tonight, I noticed one in the sump for the first time, and just for the heck of it, I decided to look in the DT with a flashlight (lights off at the moment of checking) and to my surprise, there were hundreds of these baby nerites all over the rockwork. I did not see any on the DT's glass, but over the rock... all over!!
I know they're nerites, since I only have 4 types of snails:

Nerites
FL Ceriths
Dwarf Ceriths
and stupid, SOB Vermetid Snails!

Only the Nerites are kind of spherically shaped.

Maybe my fish will eat them, maybe I'll be taking them to my LFS if they become too many. If they make it, one thing is for sure, my hermits won't have to keep fighting over the same empty shells anymore

- Mag.

 

Come morning time and I can't see them anywhere!?
Do they hide when light's up to stay away from predators during the day?

 

Nerites are night time feeders for the most parts. Those may be collonista species also. They stay small and are very productive.

 

+1 collinistas look similar and are likely to breed. good snail!

 

They burrow into the sand- leave your lights on long enough and they will come out in the light and you can then see them very well- takes a full day or so. If you have a lot of them- you might want to check your phospahte levels.

 

Ok, I will check tonight to see if I can trap one. It should be fairly easy.
It sucks I can't get a picture, but I googled "collinista" and had a couple that looked like what I saw. This was at night time, with a yellow light flashlight, so I may and could be wrong. But it looked similar to the mentioned collinista snail. I'll update when I know more.
If it's a good snail though, I should not worry and let them be.
My phosphates were undetectable and I added the Dual BRS GFO/Carbon reactor, so I'm guessing whatever phosphates that were still in the water are now gone or about to be.

Thanks for the help!

- Mag.

 

Yes, if they are Collonista snails, leave them be. They are harmless algae eaters similar to dwarth cerith snails.

 

Just thought I'd stop by and confirm that they are collinistas residing in my tank. I had never seen them before.... and I do look at my tank every day!! I'm glad they're beneficial to my tank. I really like that.....

On the other hand.... http://www.3reef.com/forums/id/nasty-looking-worm-101792.html