What Killed My Snail? with pic

[Beverly]

Whoa! Really old thread, Sam

I did a series of videos on catching an Oenone worm. The worm we fianlly caught wasn't what we thought we had. Here's the video of the worm we caught...

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/v-120g-b...-apr-29-06.wmv
April 29, 2006
(320 x 240 pixels, 7.1 MB, 2:18 minutes)

Read Dr. Ron Shimek's Reefkeeping Magazine's article, "The Large Worm Turns"...
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-04/rs/index.php

As it turned out, we had a bunch of other snail deaths in August 2006. Probably a snail or two a week died for about a month or so, always in the same part of the tank. Was really distressed about the deaths, since we thought we'd caught our snail eater. We did nothing about the deaths, except remove the dead snails. Then, no more snail deaths. Stumped me to no end.

The only two things I can think that may have happened are that our solarensis fairy wrasse wasn't getting his daily scallop any more and he/she may have been killing or eating fallen snails, or that the snails had been in our various tanks over the years, were old and simply died. Or maybe a combination of the two.

Anyway, haven't had a snail death since then.

Hopefully you have IDed the culprit, the zebra hermit, in your snail deaths. We haven't kept hermit crabs since our first tank back in the late 90s.

[draco]

You live in edmonton go to big als aquariums and get a bristol worm trap they say you can catch up to 12" worms

[untamed]

I'm too late to save your worm...but if anyone else manages to catch one of these alive I would gladly take it.

In my mind, you had something there that was a lot more interesting than snails.

I've reached the same conclusion about mantis shrimps. Hermit crabs and snails are pretty cheap and available! In my tank, they're food!

...just offering an alternative opinion. Everyone wants different things from their tank.

[Sebae]

I had a zebra hermit that would kill a snail if it wanted a bigger shell. After a while he developed a passion for snail meat. He quickly went on a trip to the sump hotel.