Reef Discussion

[lorby]

Hi everyone,

Hoping someone might be able to help me with this one. I might be mistaken but to me it looks like this snail was eating the foot on my clam?!
The clam sits on the sand and has been fine for a couple of months, but I bought a clean up crew pack from reefsecrets around 2 weeks ago and I believe this is one of the snails from that pack. I didn't think it was normal for any of the cuc snails to eat living stuff?! It looks like it had knocked the clam over and when I looked at the base it was stringy, perhspa partially eaten?

What do you guys think?

Excuse the blurry pic, was the best I could get:



Snail has been relegated to the hob refugium but if it's dangerous I'll get rid of it asap.

Thanks everyone

 

[Lesley]

Surprised it would be eating a healthy clam. Wondering if foot was already deteriatingbefore snail started eating it ?

 

[ezza]

It looks like quite a small snail, could it really knock a clam over? Have you tried smelling the clam or otherwise checking its health? Maybe the snail is eating something that was already affecting the clam.

 

[lorby]

Both good points! Perhaps it was my sand sifting starfish that had something to do with the toppling!

The clam is opening up and appears fine, I haven't smelt him/her yet though! I've moved the clam to my frag rack so I can keep an eye! I'll put the snail back in the display :).

Thanks!

 

[Oceanarium]

It looks to be a carnivourous dog whelk, though pretty sure its not a predator. it would be eating the old holdfasts from the bysal foot from when it was removed from the reef perhaps.

 

[Dr. Schell]

Looks to be a Nassarius feeding on the clam. I would suspect that the snail is feeding on DEAD tissue.

 

[lorby]

Thanks for the advice guys. I will return the snail to the DT. And keep a close eye on my clam, although it doesn't actually look too happy atm. I'll increase water changes and monitor. Thanks everyone!

 

[Oceanarium]

Old dead bysal tissues on the clam can cause issues. They can generate excess mucus at the foot if left the mucus will cause anoxic conditions and lead to hydrogen sulfide like decay of the old threads which can lead to death of the clam.

Best to have good flow to prevent mucus build up and manually remove mucus if necessary, hopefully the clam will manage to discharge the old material.