Pyramidellidae eating an astrea?
 

I came in this morning and found these astrea snails with....
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/WAVESHAUN/astrea-pyramidellid2.jpg[/IMG]
[B]Astrea #1[/B]

I was not aware that these pacific ocean clam parasitizing snails would also prey on snails - espically astrea teca(sp?) from the carribean?

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/WAVESHAUN/astrea-pyramidellid.jpg[/IMG]
[B]Astrea #2[/B]

Almost all my astrea snails have at least (1) pyramid snails around their foot.

Has anyone ever seen this before?

hey i have been wondering this to. i noticed a few on some of my Astrea snails. I shall hold off on getting a clam until i get rid of them, i was not sure if they were Pyamid snails but now that some one else has them, and on the same type of snail i am sure.

Do sixline wrasses useually prey on the Pyrimid snails? If so i am gonna pick one up.

Yep..they love mollusks. If you remove all the clams from your tank the snails can still live on preying on the astreas.

I have clams (gigas,derasa,squamosa,crocea) in this aquarium with none of these pyramids to be found...

Have they morphed to just eating snails? They do not seem to be killing the snails either....

Pyramid snails are prey specific by species as far as I have read.
On your snails they are easy enough to clean by hand, but a snail eating wrasse is the best long term solution IME.
E.G. Christmas Tree, Lightning, some Sixlines will eat them too.

Shaun,

Send a pic of the snails to Dr. Ron to get an exact id on them. I have the pyramid looking snails in my tank and thought I was doomed. After sending a pic to Dr. Ron, he identified them as an algae eating snail and not the pyramid snails that I thought they were. I can't get the search to work to get the link for you. I'll try later.

Shaun,

Can you keep us informed as to what these are. I jumped on RC tonight to ask the same question and looks like you beat me to the punch. Mine are exactly like yours, on my turbo snails.

Thank you!

In the past I have heard of pyramidellid snails preying on snails. Not sure if they are the same species that preys on clams though.

A yellow choris wrasse would be a good candidate to eat the pyramidellids.

FWIW (and despite what some experts might say) I've seen certain [I]Pyramidellidae[/I] make the jump from [I]Astrea[/I] to [I]Tridacna[/I]. Remember- if left unchecked it only takes one "rice" snail to populate an aquarium with hundreds. Make sure to destroy all egg masses as well as snails!

this thread was resurrected from the dead :D

there are over 8000 species of pyram snails and not a whole lot of info on there feeding habits. for years the common wisdom was that they were obligate predators and that if you found them on clams they would only feed on clams, and the one on snails would only feed on snails. i looked around for a long time for documentation to back this up and could never find any. finely someone sent me a study that proves pyrams are not very picky in what they eat and will in fact switch from snails to clams.

[url]http://www.biolbull.org/cgi/reprint/157/2/320[/url]

I was unaware of this study.
A big THANK YOU for sharing it, mbbuna.
It confirms my own observations.

That was a great find, mbbuna, thanks for posting the link.



Don

Got these snails on my astrea too. Everyday brush them off. When i first found them there were so many on all my snails. Now that i brush them off(outside the tank) i don't see as much. I check my clams everyday too just to make sure i don't see the snails on them.