What kind of snail is this?!

I ordered 50 of these guys because they claim that they dig through your sand as well as eat algae. I have no idea what they are, they just say Snails with a snout???

 

Nassarius snail. They will sift the sand well and are excellent scavengers. They do not, however, eat algae. Detritus, left over food, anything that dies, etc will be their main diet.

 

awesome. thanks k+

 

Maybe I missed it, but what size tank are they going into? 50 would be a buttload in a small tank.

 

lol. a 65 gallon and 20

 

I put 20 or 25 nassarius in my 90g, and that seems to be a good quantity.

 

No bueno!

I had one in my tank and the only thing I saw it eat was one of my Ceriths.

Here is some more info:

Do You Know Who You’re Dealing With? Get to Know the Real Ilyanassa obsoleta by Mike Greenemeier - Reefkeeping.com

from the article:
"They also require meat in their diet to survive and reproduce (Curtis and Hurd, 1979; Hurd, 1985). This meat comes primarily from carrion and predation on sandbed fauna, including other snails (Race, 1982)." (emphasis mine).

"Good" Nassarius (Nassarius vibex) have a pointed shell and a really big (relatively) foot.

Please see ReefCleaners.org | Clean Up Crews and Macro Algae - Home for your CleanUpCrew needs.

 

Oh yeah, some are predatory whelks and NOT nassarius. The easiest way to make sure you get nassarius is to get the big jumbo ones.

 

Hey Guys,

That isn't exactly a Nassarius, although it's in the same family. It's Ilyanassa obsoleta. I highly recommend this article by Mike Greenemeier if you are considering using these snails rather than the "normal" Nassarius:

Do You Know Who You’re Dealing With? Get to Know the Real Ilyanassa obsoleta by Mike Greenemeier - Reefkeeping.com

Cheers,



Don

 

Read through that article(the two times it was posted), very interesting. Any idea what the "chance" that most LFS are accidentally mixing the two up are? or I should say how common is the practice?