Help! Pyramid snails

[BranchingHammer]

Hi everyone,
I recently bought some cerith and turbo snails at my LFS. About two weeks later, I saw two white pyramid snails clinging to a cerith. I also have a large derasa clam that I have had for close to two years in the tank. I need a clam expert to walk me through getting rid of the pests. I will do anything to keep my derasa alive. I have a holding tank for live rock in which I can put snails from my DT. I assume the first step is to visually inspect the base of the clam for snails? Please advise me. I had a small maxima about a year and a half ago succumb to these snails. I cannot lose this clam!
Thanks in advance.

 

[BranchingHammer]

Update: I removed all of the turbo/cerith snails that I could see, but there are still more, including a nassarius. Also, I have thousands of collonista snails in the tank. Will the pyramid snails be able to sustain themselves this way? I only found on the shell of the clam during the day, but I will check tonight to see if I can find any more.

 

[BranchingHammer]

I found only one pyramid snail on the derasa last night when the lights were off. It wasn't near the mantle or the foot, just on the side of the shell. I also put two more algae-eating snails in the sump. I'm unsure whether to keep the snails in the sump, or put them in my new system? Anyone have any advice for that?

 

[outerbank]

Yes, the first thing is to take the derasa out of the tank and use a toothbrush to gently clean the entire shell. Inspect for snails and egg masses which are clear gel like goop.

 

[Reefer Reboot]

Just thinking, since you found only one on the clam and it wasn't near the foot, you might not have Pyramidellid snails after all, but Rissoid snails instead. Very similar but that's up to you to determine. Best of luck!

 

[BranchingHammer]

Thank you for the advice. I will scrub the clam tonight, and I will check out the pyramid snails to see if they are the rissoid snails. What should I be doing to the other algae-eating snails in the tank? Put them in the refugium? Put them in my cycling rock tank with nori? If they are pyramid snails, can they feed on my thousands of collonista snails?

 

[BranchingHammer]

Couldn't find any pyramid snails on my clam last night while scrubbing, but I will check the waste water from scrubbing one more time to see if there are any. I'll try to ID them once I find them again to see if they are rissoids. Do you think I could have just caught them really early? I will keep scrubbing every other day in case there are eggs.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Ugh. I am sorry about the snails. If you find one, definitely do the comparison to know for sure. Keep checking nightly for a while. Then maybe three times a week, then twice, then weekly. I battled them for months in my qt after finding one in the dt. I was able to save four of my clams (the fifth was lost) and they are growing and good in the dt now.
Good luck. Keep inspecting and cleaning. Best you can do.

 

[BranchingHammer]

Thanks so much, I obtained two sample snails last night and I will check them under a light microscope bc they are so small. Here is an interesting thing: I have only found them feeding on my vermetid snails in the clam, not on the clam directly. I have also found them feeding on my collonista snails. Maybe I got a snail specific parasite? Let me know what you guys think?

 

[Reefer Reboot]

Can you post clear close up pics from different angles?

 

[BranchingHammer]

I will later today, but we'll see if we can ID them from that... They're pretty small. I will try my best though!

 

[BranchingHammer]

Sorry everyone for not posting pictures under the microscope. I wasn’t really worried because I couldn’t find (and still can’t find) any of the snails on the clam. I see them occasionally on vermetid snails presumaby killing them. When I looked at the shell under the microscope, I saw the columellar fold and shell apex of the pyramelli, so I think it’s a parasite. But I only see them on snails, so maybe I got extremely lucky? Let me know what you guys think. Thanks so much!

 

[OrionN]

Pyramids are very host specific. IME, the Pyramids that infected snails do not infect Tridacna clams and vice versa.
When you add snails to the tank, do the same, you need to clean each of the snail under running water, be careful not get them exposed to chlorinated fresh water, prior to add them into your tank. I had infestation of these snails on my Tridacna and nu snails way back in the early 2000's. I have not have problem with them in my DT since. This is a short article I wrote about them sometime back.
https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/how-i-deal-with-pyram-snails-the-giant-clam-parasitic-snails.766/

 

[BranchingHammer]

Just realized I didn't post images ;Facepalm...

You can see in these pictures what I think is the classic columnar fold and shell apex of pyramidellids. Let me know what you guys think.

Thank you very much for the reply @OrionN . I will definitely be more cautious in the future with introducing snails after what I've seen. So I should rinse their shells in freshwater, but not their bodies, correct? And make sure to scrub to get eggs off?

 

[West1]

Any luck? I’ve just about given up.
20gl QT bare bottom tank that has a lot of corals, including a clam. Clam is on a rack and from what I have seen over the past 8mo, no pyramid snails.
My astrea snails on the other hand, have them. I’ve been cleaning all 5 snails daily (occasionally every other day) since Nov 2020 (8 months) and I’ve neglected them for a week due to work and BOOM, there’s like 20 pyramid snails on each astrea. I’m scared to add the clam to my DT tank because I’ve got true nano conches in there.

if I remove the astrea snails, would the pyramids crawl up my PVC rack to hit my clam?

 

[West1]

Update on QT tank.
still have pyramids and my clan does not have any. I find the pyramids all over these tiny round snails and have no idea how they got in my qt

 

[BranchingHammer]

My snails turned out to not prey on my clam, but only on my smaller snails, including my collonista snails. I would often observe them at night on the shells of other snails and sometimes vermetid snail tubes. However, I have not seen them recently, perhaps it's because I haven't been watching out for them like I used to.

 

[West1]

I have colonista snails as well, that’s where my pyramids are staying alive.
Is there a way to nuke all snails in a reef tank safely?
I don’t care for the colonista but I do care for my Turbo, bumblebee and other snails.

 

[Shirak]

I have colonista snails as well, that’s where my pyramids are staying alive.
Is there a way to nuke all snails in a reef tank safely?
I don’t care for the colonista but I do care for my Turbo, bumblebee and other snails.

Fenbendazole for dog parasites has been used to kill hydroids and blue clove polyps supposedly will nuke snails too. I would do a lot of research on it first..
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/eliminating-blue-clove-polyps-with-fenbendazole.308994/