where have all the stomatellas gone?

[salty420]

so not long ago my tank was crawling with stomatella snails. in my 37g i had at least 70 crawling about. then i started seeing my cleaner shrimp eating them. im not saying the shrimp killed them but it was def eating the bodies. now i see all the empty shells in the sand, teeny ones and the bigger ones too. i can't see any alive now. i haven't seen any hermits eating any so i don't think they were killed by the crabs. my params are good, 0 nitrates now in the tank... nothing else in the tank has died, all the other snails and inverts are doing just fine. what could have cause all of the stomatellas to die?

[Wrench]

I had the same thing happen, I was thinking about it today actually :) In my case I think they ran out of food. They are grazers and once the algae was gone they starved to death.

[mamasky]

We've noticed out stomatella population decreasing also. We've got plenty of algae for them though so I'm not sure what the reason is.

[salty420]

hmm strange... seems like i've got enough algae for at least some of them to have survived as well...

[tamableanimal]

Population explosions are common with many animals and as food sources decline so does the population until it reaches a balance. As to wether it is a reduction in reproduction or fatality loss do to loss of food or compitition for food I am not sure with stominellas. This happen a few times in younger tanks with different animals, such as copepod and isopods in new tanks.

[Grins]

I know what is going on with my stomatellas....the freaky shrimp are dining on them at night. Any on the rock are made into quick meals.

[clown-lover]

I actually saw two more other than the original last night.. One in the overflow and one in the refugium.. I don't think they are "expanding" their numbers however I just think I missed these.

[BeelzeBob]

there are 2 specis of stomatella snails. one is a good for reefs, one not so much.

i find it odd yall say they eat algae. mine eat strictly carrian and detritus.


the diff. between the 2 species is that the good ones, live in reef temps in the wild.

the other, lives at temps below 70, and is much much more aggressive.

so the later species will slowly deteriate in our tanks, and run the risk of attacking and eatin other inverts.

sound to me like a lack of food, or just the wrong species for reef tanks.

[salty420]

well i don't know where they came from in the first place, and it started out that i only had 2 so something made them really happy at first. but now they are just gone, shrimpy food i guess...

[Grins]

Mine are definitely eating algae and they are great at it.

[BeelzeBob]

really?

these are the lil sumarine snails that bury themselves in the sand bed right?

[Grins]

No, nassarius will do that. These are Stomatella varia

[salty420]

yep sounds like you are thinking nassarius snails bob, stomatellas are the ones everyone thinks are slugs in thier tanks.

[BeelzeBob]

ohhhhh yea i had those ha!

i attributed their population decline to Bane, but who knows.


also, those of you who didnt notice, Bob just had a DEEET DEEET DDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
moment.

my bad

[clown-lover]

Thats ok Bob.. We ALL have those days.. :D