Snail's shells empty and slim covered...?
 

Anyone know what might be causing my snails to die?

Over the last month or so I have lost five or six snails. I find their shells empty and covered in a thick nasty slim. It is a fairly new tank, about three months old. The levels have been steady at ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5 for the last two months or so. The sg is 1.023. Temp is 75 degrees. The snails were nassarius and trochus.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Yup, most likely a thin slimey worm that burrows in tunnels in the sand and kills and eats the snails. Carefully move the sand around one of the shells to see if you can pull up a tube. Also, if the shells all end up in the same place (like beside a rock), the worm probably lives in or under that rock. I had one of these years ago, same symptoms.

sounds freaky! I will check for one next time it happens. Come to think of it they have always been on the sand when they meet their demise...
If I can't actually find the worm is there any other way to keep this from happening?

Nope! I ended up tossing a piece of rock to get rid of mine.

Damn.

Pretty much sums up my experience with it..I found all th esnails were dragged to a certain spot, so I knew where it was. I tried a trap thingy, and it got dragged across the sand to the same spot. Took the rock out, tried soda water, hammer and chisel, never got it, so tossed the whole 10 pounds of rock. This did end the snail deaths tho, so it was somewhere in that rock.

hmmm, so you never saw this worm? Just wondered what it was like, how big, color, etc.

Ya, saw it once at night with a flashlight, very thin and red, about 16" long that I could see. It seemed to keep its' butt in the rock though, so not sure how long it really was.

Never heard of that before Brad! That's disgusting! Yuck, worms can be so gross.

But hey...Key Equine, I noticed your SG is 1.023 which is fine for a fish only tank, but if you plan on keeping a reef tank you should bump that up to 1.026.

I had a huge Polyclad Flatworm that ate snails and actually ate a small Clam in my old tank. The beast was completely nocturnal and only ate snails, I caught it one night dragging a snail into a hole.

I identified the Flatworm as the one that I have linked below;

http://www.seaslugforum.net/display.cfm?id=16272