Hi everybody.
Has anyone else received their TBS rock w/ a bunch of whelk snails? Sorry, but I don't have pics, and I know ID'ing snails is nearly impossible, even w/ pics, a lot of the time.
I've literally looked at hundreds of pics of whelks over on Dr. Shimek's website. The variety of phenotypes in the same snail's shell coloration and appearance is staggering. I know to look for the proboscus sticking out front, and a little dot for their eye on a separate "stalk," but I don't want to be picking out Nassarius snails from my display tank, only predatory snails.
The ones I have in my tank are all dark brown, with a shell that is pointy on both ends, shaped like a football. The proboscus elongates out of one of the two end points of the shell. They're crawling primarily over the rocks, on which I have a ton of live barnacles. I've read that nassarius snails stay on the sand bed, but the predatory whelks climb rockwork, so I'm thinking these are not nass snails. They range in size from 2mm to 1 inch. The proboscus has that black speckling "tatoo" appearance too. Should I be pulling these guys from my tank before they eat other animals?
Oh, and I found a 5" long cuke as another hitchhiker! He's just brown in color, but he's the king of the tank so far due to his size! I really hope this heat wave doesn't cook him, as our apartment's AC is struggling right now, and I'm not even running lights until tomorrow at the earliest, to try and keep the water temp down. I'm floating ice in the water each day. To say this heat wave is freaking me out re: my new tank is the understatement of the month...