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View Full Version : Help Me ID This Thing



mojoreason
05-17-2005, 04:18 PM
okay ... am at UCSD right now but i did get a shot of it ... didn't have time to download the pic ... it looks like a snail but i don't know if it is.

it has a shell like a snail - - it almost looks like a horshoe crab shell or maybe a potato bug out in your drive ... it sticks out of its shell though ... it has antennae that stick up too like a nassirius snail (but it ain't one of those) ...

anyway - - changing water and then see this thing that is spewing out white stuff ... i look at it closer and it looks like i described above ...

i decide i needed to get it out of there for a better photo but it didn't work ... as it was trying to escape on the back side of the rock i flicked it back ... it stuck to the rock and started extending itself - - i grabbed the camera ... then i went in with a small container to trap it and it shed it's ****ing skin!

sorry for the expletive ... it's the weirdest thing i've ever seen in my tank ... the excess thing it shed stuck to the rock and looked like a slug ... the other part retracted into the shell and slid down the rock into the sand and slanked away ... i went back to try and trap the other thing and it twirled up and fell into the sand bed too.

i think i saw another one of these cruising along the glass at the bottom by the sand ... what the hell are these?

and then here's another thing ... i thought i saw something in there that looked like a mollusk too - - but it was moving like a snail all weird-like as well ... a completely different shell than that above ... anyone have any of these in their tanks? i noticed one in my overflow too and thought i saw another smaller one. garf.org said something about them & their egg laying being beneficial ... anyone else have any experience with this?

MrKrispy
05-17-2005, 04:38 PM
wow, best send the tank to Area51 because it sounds like you got an alien in thar.

jharr
05-17-2005, 08:30 PM
Sounds like Stomatella varia. Beneficial grazers. They occasionally 'spawn' by spewing eggs and sperm into the water. Most of it probably gets eaten by corals. I have a bunch of them in my 20L and they just cruise around and graze on algae all day. I have never tried to catch one and have never observed teh skin shedding behavior, but it sounds like a defense mechanism.

jharr
05-17-2005, 08:32 PM
http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/img/stomatella.jpg