I have a snail grave yard and clicking. I also have 2 conchs but they dont do nothin to my snails.

This has the makings of another of those reefing rumours. Let's get this straight.

From what I've read, over 100 species of "conch" have been described. A similar number of whelks have been described. In addition, there are a number of other gastropods that resemble these two groups fairly closely.

Collectors are fairly fond of throwing "miscellaneous" inverts into orders, supposedly without the permission of the shops. Regardless, they seem to arrive here in significant quantities, sometimes in certain stores more than others. We know that generally stores do not take the time to identify these animals and check up on their diet.

The conchs we actually want are typically Strombus gigas (Queen conch) and Strombus alatus (Florida fighting conch). Although there is a dearth of information on the web, the experience of anyone I know of who has confirmed that they own either of these is that they are strict non-predatory omnivores (detritus eaters), or at least, do not predate anything we know of in the aquarium. I had a Strombus luhuanus (strawberry conch) and have no reason to believe it ate anything but dirt.

On the other hand, I've seen photos of many gastropods on RC and RDO that were reported to attack other invertebrates and cnidaria, and although I am not an expert, comparisons with photos of the above-listed species on reputable sites indicated that these were species other than those typically accepted as suitable.

Therefore I would caution anyone against saying "my conch ate my..." It is possible to positively identify many of these animals based on images and reports on the web, and I feel this would be a worthwhile endeavour for anyone owning one of these animals who is worried about what it might do. Obviously this is not an exact measure but it's better than perhaps proliferating the idea that any animal labeled "conch" is either a time bomb or on the flip side is never going to cause any problems whatsoever. Perhaps even more importantly, I feel that shops should take it upon themselves to attempt to identify species they receive, willingly or not, in order to protect their customers' tanks. When was the last time any of us saw an animal in a store labeled "unsuitable for reef tanks"... :rolleyes:

http://data.acnatsci.org/conchnet/
http://www.gastropods.com/

I would be very much inclined to agree with Quinn :eek: , and also add that from what I have seen I have never seen a Bristleworm of ANY size attack anything living. I have some very large Brisleworms, and have never lost anything to them. :rolleyes:

Will be updating daily so I can keep a record of events as they happen....

No new dead snails overnight. Of the two snail carcasses, one was tipped over (probably by the snail that I saw next to it this morning) but nothing eaten out of it, the other carcass is in the same place. None of the three snails in the trap were disturbed. Still here the sharp but quiet clicking in the tank throughout the day and evening.

The clicking isn't a piece of equipment is it?

Was it mentioned earlier in this thread that some crabs can click too? Got a new piece of live rock with a small green crab in it, and that one clicks.

Another update (sheesh :confused: )....

The tipped over caracss was gone when I checked the tank three hours after the last update. Looked all over the tank, but couldn't find it. Had lunch, did an errand, then came back to look for the carcass again about an hour ago. Found it about two feet from its original position and picked clean :evil: Original position was at the back of the tank. Found position was about a foot from the original graveyard in another cave/throughfare. The trap was a barrier between the graveyard and the found position. Since the trap was only collecting detritus, I removed it, making one unobstructed throughfare under the rock across the whole 4' tank as it had been before setting the (useless) trap.

Also kind of strange is our blue sided wrasse missing a scale on its right side since late last week, and one of the scales on the right side of the flame back angel has been pulled out of place since early this week :neutral:

Haven't heard ANY clicking this afternoon since discovering the picked clean carcass.

DANG!!!!! I'm so freaking frustrated :eek: :evil: :frown:

Quinn,

Clicking from equipment was the first thing we ruled out, thinking it was the heaters going on and off. Not so.

Well I have seen on 3 occasions where the Conch's long mouth was between the trap door of a snail, and when I separated one of them the smail was eatten. I know what your going to say next, that the snail was dead and the conch was doing a cleanup job.. Read on :) The snail was not already dead as both were on the glass at the time. I have seen this happen a few times


Explain that one :biggrin:

It's probably a welk, they look amazingly similar.

The obvious answer is "stick to Fighting Conches". You would then be certain it would not go on the glass. Any Fighting Conches I have had were perfect. :mrgreen:

I have had what was sold to me as a "fighting conch" and one as a "strawberry conch." Both have eaten nothing but the diatomaceous covering you get on the sand. Unlike worms who will move in to clean a dead or dying animal, these two will not touch anything but dirt.

My fighting conch has never left the sand. Never on the rocks, never on the glass. The strawberry will make occasonal attempts to climb the glass but never goes higher than 1". Not really a climber. Queen conches, very similar to fighting conches, except that they grow to the size of a football, can and will climb glass and rocks. Anyhow, point being, if you see a "fighting conch" on the rocks or the glass, then it is not really a fighting conch - it's something else.

There are carnivorous and predatory conches and whelks, and probably a host of other kinds of snailish kind of things who will capture and devour other snails. There are so many different species and to the untrained eye, really, they're indistinguishable. You have to rely on the word of the vendor (who has to rely on the word of their distributors, collectors/divers, etc. etc.). And I'm sure there are at least a dozen species that are sold under the monniker "fighting conch" that .. well, aren't. So you have to watch these guys fairly closely and make your own judgment call.

Yes, Fighting Conches have that big keel like thing they use to propel themselves (Quinn has the name for that). They would fall right off the glass using that thing. :biggrin:

Operculum. :mrgreen:

It sounds like your very own Bermuda Triangle :smile:

Walter

ROTFLMAO :lol: :mrgreen: :eek:

Didn't update yesterday, but did find the second carcass moved from the day before, though I couldn't see if it was picked clean because it was under a rock and out of view.

Then, in the late afternoon, found another snail dead and picked clean about a foot and a half away from the graveyard under the tank-length throughfare. After lights out, I got out the flashlight to see if I could find the thing doing all the clicking. Didn't see it and also couldn't find that dead snail.

At least this tank doesn't have bubble algae.......knock on wood :eek:

Maybe you can borrow a video camera (if you don't already have one), and set it up to record during the night with a moonlight or actinic on and then view the tape in FF mode and wait for something to show up. It could be that the snails just died and the bristle worms dragged them back to their area to eat.

Bev have you tried removing the rock you believe the culprit is in, for closer observation? You may have no other choice now.

The scale loss of your fishes may be unrelated, they may simply have been getting a little rambunctious and scrapped against a rock. On the other hand, perhaps something scared them at night. I will say that I've found that when a fish is actually attacked by something, they consistently seem to loose pieces of fin, not scales, but that's my experience with a sample size of two individuals.

I'm beginning to think that the only way to be really safe is to start with base rock. Or maybe live rock that's been circulating through the hobby for several years.

That is a good idea. That is a way for Bev to have another tank :biggrin: I for instance run a 15 in which I keep some zoos for sale, along with rocks that tend to grow Aiptasia. That way the rocks are under observation, and isolation. I can then work on the Aiptasia until it is eradicated.
BTW, I have a 20H just sitting around you could use. I can scare up lights, powerheads, heaters etc. to run it. :eek:

This is happening in my 120g with probably 140 lbs of rock, no sandbed for the critter to leave tracks on or a hole in the sandbed under a particular rock. The clicking comes from the near the centre of the tank, but from which rock, I haven't the faintest idea. I flashlight that tank several times after lights out and before I go to bed, and haven't even had a glimpse of the possible culprit :confused:

All my "spare" tanks are being used to get rid of bubble algae from my 67g and my 37g. Don't know when that emerald crab I have is going to stop eating the coraline algae a bit of bubble algae. The 37g had rock from when we moved into our condo. Despite every effort to eradicate the stuff, it kept coming back tenfold. Finally, out of utter frustration, I boiled all the rock which was ALL covered with that menace, so that rock is cycling and deader than a doornail.

So, am I having a good time with any of my new tanks????!!!!!???? When added together, I think we've got the Bermuda triangle PLUS Area 51 going on at our place with regard to tanks and various problems :eek:

Sam's idea might work, but my technical assistant, Chris, is out of town until late Sunday night. Don't know if we have the camcorder or if my daughter has it. It would be cool to be able to hook it up to our vcr with the hard drive, but don't know if that's possible.


AARRGGHHHHHH !!!!!!!

Update....

While flashlighting the 120g last night, I found a small crab in a hole in the rock with a small hitchhiker snail in its grasp turning it over and over :evil: Snail diameter was less than a 1/4". Did not see the whole crab, but I imagine its back would have been about 3/4" in diameter. Tried to stab the crab with some tweezers, but the b****** climbed out of the hole and took off :evil:

This crab was waaaaay on the other side of the tank from where the graveyard was. Don't think it is large enough to tackle an astrea or margarita, but got thinking I may be dealing with a larger snail-killing crab. So I set up a crab trap near where I found the small crab with a not yet dead, but not very mobile astrea that's been in the tank for the last two days :2gunfire: While setting the trap, I had to move some smaller pieces of rock to support the trap and found an astrea shell picked clean.

No crab in the trap this morning :confused: Will move the trap to a location closer to where the graveyard was tonight.

Also found an astrea snail on its side at the back of the tank near the crab. It looked like it was trying to right itself, so I reached in and set it upright. It crawled away like normal :biggrin:

I believe I may be looking at two different things here. One may be that the snails are falling down and are easy prey for the predator, possibly a crab. The other may be that there is a big crab in the tank killing astreas and margaritas. I know for sure there is a small crab taking down little hitchhikers snails, though :evil: Perhaps they are the same crab?

Further investigation is certainly warranted.

Hooray, 100th post in this thread.

A real mystery Bev. Definitely intriguing. I know how absurdly fast crabs can be, you might remember the time I tried to catch my Garfield crab and ended up with one of his legs. Tough little bastards.

Overall, how many snails did you find dead in the graveyard, and how many snails do you still have?

Quinn,

Don't know how many snails I had to begin with, so I don't know exactly how many are left. But there are lots left, though, and too hard to count, you know :mrgreen:

As for the dead ones, I stopped counting :frown: None died last night, if I don't count the hitchhiker that I didn't know was there. Don't know how many hitchhikers have gone missing because these guys are so small and I think they only come out at night.

I checked out my 37g and 67g earlier today. 37g has only margaritas and none have died. 67g has margaritas and ceriths. Ceriths were left over from when we had tanks with sandbeds. Two of them died shortly after changing tanks, but none have died since. No margaritas have died in the 67g, either.

Yup, it's a mystery all right. Gonna keep investigating. Lucky I found that crab eating that poor little snail last night. Gives me another direction to follow up on.

Getting desparate and am considering using the carbonated water method on ALL the rock in the 120g :eek: Have seen several crabs over the past few nights, one of which I would like to transfer to another tank to eat algae. Have yet to find the source of the clicking as it moves to different locations in the tank.

Anyway, I have a few questions about using carbonated water before I attempt this massive undertaking:

- If I soak individual rocks in a pail of carbonated water and remove the animals that come out and place them right away in SW, will these animals survive?

- After a 2-4 minute saok, how much of the live stuff on my rock will still be alive, such as macroalgae, coraline algae, bacteria? Will I be killing the rock by soaking it in carbonated water?

- Some of my rock has mushrooms and star polyps on it. Will the carbonated water kill them?

- What else should I know about the effects that carbonated water will have on my rock and animals?

Thanks in advance for any comments, suggestions, similar experiences :smile:

Bev, I would only do this with a rock you knew something was in. Not just hit them all until you find something. soda water is not good for anything on the rock. Besides the osmotic difference, you have a huge pH difference as well.

What Brad said :eek: , but in addition you would more than likely end up with a whole bunch of DEAD rock.

Yup, that's what I was leading to....

Brad and boB,

The problem is that I have no idea which rocks harbour the bad guy(s). Would using RO/DI or very dilute SW water, say with a salinity of .300 instead of the regular 1.026, instead of soda water be less harmful to the rock overall, but still flush out the crabs and the thing doing all the clicking?

I don't necessarily want to kill the crabs, because I know that at least two of them are beautiful and harmless filter feeders and another is an algae eater. But I would like to find the other crabs and clicking thing, and do as little harm to the rock as possible.

Any other ideas than those I have suggested?

Try taking 1-3 rocks out at a time. Remove the rock(s) and put them in a bucket of tank water. Then listen for the clicks in the tank over the night. If no more clicks then you've got the rock(s) you want. If you still have clicks, remove another group of rocks.

Though you may find the animal that is clicking, it may still not be the thing killing your snails. I'd still use a video recorder if you have one.

How about setting up a QT tank and removing those rocks you think harbour the bad guy? Keep baiting both tanks and see what happens. I also recommend using something more tasty than already dead snails for bait. I think you should go back to trying to trap the sucker!

Beverley, I have sitting on my shelf doing nothing, a Ultralife X-terminator Mantis Shrimp trap. I bought it some time ago from MOPS. I would be more than happy to send it to you. :biggrin:

Thanks for the suggestions :biggrin:

Sam, yes, two dead snails over the past two days. One an astrea, one a margarita. Both picked clean. The STRANGE thing about these snails' deaths is that they were both found high up in the rock over the floor of the tank of the graveyard :eek: Both snail bottoms were pointing outward, sort wedged in the ragged countours of the rock only a couple of inches away from each other. This is why I have no freaking idea where the killer is :eek:

The idea of putting a camera on the tank sounds good in theory, but in practice, where would I aim the camera in a 120g?

Taking a few rocks out at a time may be worthy of consideration. But I'm imagining taking the rock out, securing the rocks and corals that are left so they don't fall down, testing the removed rock then putting them back in, taking more out, securing them all again so they don't fall down, and on and on and on .... And who knows.... If I take out the first three rocks and there is nothing in them, when I put them back in the bad guy(s) move into the rock I've just removed :confused:

I'm wondering how successful I would be if I tore down the tank and poked and prodded each hole in each rock if that might be simpler over the long haul than taking a few rocks out at a time.

For the trap, what would you suggest as bait?

Thanks, boB, for the offer of the trap. Might take you up on it :smile: Will let you know :smile:

My trap is about six inches long by 1.5 inches. Made from smoked plastic. I was just playing with it, and it works well. It says for bait you use Krill, or freeze dried food. :mrgreen:

After hearing it spelled out I retract this suggestion. I'd try the trap for a while then do the teardown and poking thing.

Are you sure there's nothing else that could be contributing to snail deaths other than a predator?

We're rooting for you!

I agree, this needs to be considered carefully.

Playing the devil's advocate - most good live rock contains a variety of fauna, including predators. Most of us keep a fair number of snails. Mass snail death is not commonly reported.

CptCleverer and Quinn,

Absolutely, something other than a predator could be killing them. I just can't imagine what that would be. There were no snail deaths for a few days, then the two I described above, and there were just shells left with those two.

Haven't done anything in this tank that I'm not doing in the others, though I have not done thorough testing for awhile. Maybe pH, calcium, nitrate or other levels could be out of whack and that's what's doing them in. Maybe they are sick with some snail sickness, but how would I know?

Was flashlighting the tank a few nights ago and there was a swarm of 1/4" swimming things. They followed the light and were kind of cool. Then I noticed this worm on the glass. Sort of looked like a very small bristleworm, but with very long legs. When I shone the flashlight on the worm, the swimming things that got close to the worm looked like they got stung and fell to the ground. Don't know if they died or not, but the next night, when flashlighting, only a few of the swimming guys were left. Could be the swimmers were going through the swimming part of their life cycle the night before and were finished the next night, or could be that the worm killed them. Don't know about this.

Now I imagine if there is one of those worms with long stinging legs on the glass, there has to be more. What if a snail inadvertently brushed up against one, got stung, then was open to predation by something in the tank? Who knows??!??

Will do a thorough water testing on Monday and report back.

Didn't have time to do a full testing of the 120g as promised because I was in hospital for the last week :sad: Chris was looking after the tanks while I was gone and I noticed he hadn't been topping up the tanks very well. At least he was feeding the fish and topping up a bit :smile: Found only one dead snail upon my return today, but that one may have been there for awhile.

Anyway, was making up new water for the water change this weekend and noticed I'd been reading my refractometer incorrectly :redface: :eek: Tested the 120g and SG was only 1.020 :eek: When I think back to when I got the refractometer, I'd say the snail deaths may have started a month or two after getting it.

Have spent the afternoon removing half buckets of water from the tank, adding salt, stirring thoroughly, then putting that water back into the tank. So far, am up to 1.023.

So, I'm thinking low SG must have been the cause of the snail deaths. The clicking sound is probably a harmless alpheid shrimp or something similar, and cr*p, do I EVER FEEL STUPID :confused:

Any more deaths since you corrected the Sp.Gr.?
or has that seemed to fix things.

Yes, about as many as before :confused:

I've also torn down the snail death tank (120g) since the last post and put it back together, eyeing all the holes. Found one little crab that looked like it was possibly a coralline algae eater. It has a new home in another reefer's tank. No more clicking sounds from the tank, nor in any other tanks :biggrin: Did see the head of a pinhead-sized brown worm in one rock. At the time, wasn't thinking very clearly and didn't consider this worm a threat considering its size, but am now wondering if this itty bitty brown worm isn't the beginning of the HUGE worm described earlier on this thread :eek:

Had removed some rock as well and replaced it with rock I had in the 37g that had been (gasp!!!!) boiled to remove a case of bubble algae that just got worse every time I manually cleaned it. The boiled rock was cycled and fed to sustain a bioload in a spare 20g for several weeks before using in the snail death tank :evil: The 37g is now up and running with rock from the 120g as of this past weekend :biggrin: No dead snails in it :smile: Yet :eek:

We had a zebra hermit that loved Escargot. He now lives in the sump all by himself. :mrgreen: