I need a critter ID'ed. Well, I THINK critter...

[STiTCH87]

What is that thing in the center of the photo? It has the casing of what looks like a cocoworm or something, but at the hold where a featherduster would come out, there instead is a round brown disc like what snails have (I forget the scientific name) and that piece opens sometimes and what looks like the mouth of a snail emerges and a long thin string substance comes out and can reach one side of my tank to the other and junk gets stuck to it, and then the snail like substance has a mouth that you can actually SEE a tongue in it's mouth pulling the string back into it's mouth as if it's purposely feeding on the crap that gets stuck to the string. But it's not stingers or feelers or tentacles because I can easily remove the stringy substance by hand. It's basically a mucus string.

Anyone know what it could be? Tried getting a video but I couldn't zoom in good enough.

 

[The Ng Thing]

vermetid snail

 

[Turbosnail]

+1 vermetid snail the web they release will bother some corals.

 

[STiTCH87]

Well luckily the only coral the web ever reaches is my frogspawn which doesn't seem affected by it. Should I attempt to remove it?

 

[wilfx]

+1 on the vermetid

 

[FOXYB]

Glue his flap shut

 

[gweston]

I have one of those suckers under my hammer coral. It releases a web that tends to cover the rock and corals around it. Still deciding what to do with it.

 

[Turbosnail]

I would get rid of it and any other ones you find.

 

[Yanni]

I have hundreds of them in my system, my tank is completly softy dominated and running about six years now. They have never bothered any of the corals, they actually seem to do a very good job of keeping my water column clean. Any debris when i turkey baste the rocks is caught and eaten up.

 

[JohnK]

I agree. IME they have never really bothered anthing (except for me because the webs are kind of ugly), but they are great for trapping particulate matter/detritis when it gets stirred up.

 

[The Ng Thing]

I have a ton. Like everyone's said they are great at trapping suspended particles which you can then suck out with a syringe

 

[Turbosnail]

Thats good to know I always thought they were bad I will leave them alone now.

 

[dcforester1]

I hate them, get rid of him. Take a tube of super glue, and like Bijian said, glue em shut!

 

[STiTCH87]

I planned to keep it anyways for that exact reason of how I literally saw it eating it's web covered in junk from the water column. Any cleanup crew member is a good one IMO long as it doesn't bother anything else. And telling by how HUGE the polyps open on the candy cane it's attached to, I don't think it minds the web in the least.

 

[The Ng Thing]

That snail doesn't know how lucky he is lol

 

[STiTCH87]

Lol lucky enough to not be fed super glue. Everything in my tank is lucky. My sponge gets spot fed marine snow, my fish are hand fed frozen, cycled with pellet and flake (not hand-fed), I hand feed my snails algae sheets once and awhile to supplement their diets, and I even...get this...SPOT FEED HERBIVORE PELLETS TO MY CANDY CANE CORAL!

I get an eye dropper and grab one pellet at a time from the jar and place one on each polyp then what each polyp swell up and suck in the pellet. Not sure of the benefit yet, but it certainly does make a huge effort to eat these and seems very happy to do so. It all started one day when one just so happened to land and the coral and I noticed it eating it. Ever since, i've spot fed once a week and it's never opened bigger. Anyone with this coral, i'd highly recommend giving this a try!

EDIT: Also, when feeding flakes, I use freshwater flakes, not saltwater. I use TetraMin Color flakes for tropical fish because EVERYTHING in my tank FLIPS out for them. And I mean FLIPS OUT. I can drop one single flake in, and every living creature comes out and tries to get it. Even my shrimp swim to the surface to grab them. My nassarius climb the glass to the surface, everything, you name it. They all love it. And it seems to be keeping everything colored up real nicely. I also recommend people giving that a try as well. Especially since a jar of flakes is like $2 at WalMart.

 

[The Ng Thing]

haha I feed my snails too! Feeding corals like that reminds me of venus fly traps ... I feel like not alot of people realize how cool corals are.

P.s. I thought you'd like a pic of one of my snails before feeding time

 

[STiTCH87]

How did you get him onto your finger?! I didn't mean literally HAND feed! Lol! Never tried that before.

 

[gweston]

Great snail pic!

I've played around with my snails a few times. Usually to entertain my 5yo son. He loves it. But I haven't fed them before.. I have just let them graze the rock. Occasionally I drop in some herbivore pellets.