some sort of parasite?

[JinxXx0085]

Hiya all, I have this snail that I love the look of. Anyway, I just noticed that this snail had some clearish tube thingy coming out of its shell and 'probing' around. Heres 2 pictures of it.

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Any ideas of what it is?
Right now the snail is hanging out of water line. I suspect the nitrates might be on high side for it. Its nearly 20 ppm. Is snails sensitive to nitrate?
O yeah, its 2 Q's

 

[OrionGirl]

Nitrates aren't really a concern for most snails--in fact, they tend to be hardy enough to survive spikes that would be lethal to most fish without any noticable shortening of life.

As for what you have there--it does look like a parasite. I'm not sure how to treat a snail for parasites, since most of the effective modifications will kill the snail as well as the parasite. However--I'd also not worry very much, since most parasites in snails require a variety of species to complete their life cycle, meaning this one is probably trying to move on to it's next life stage, and lacking a host, will die. I'd suspect that the parasite is altering the snails behavior, making it climb to the waterline in an effort to get the snail caught by whatever species would be the next host. Parasites are pretty amazing critters!

 

[telecubby]

it's freaking me out though :idea2:

 

[JinxXx0085]

telecubby, you're funny :

I thought so that it might be a parasite. Any idea what type it could be?
I hope it won't affect anything. I guess I'll give it a week and see what happens to the snail or to my fish. I recently moved it from my betta's tank to my 29g. :mad2: I hope the parasite won't hurt my fish in 29g.