Nassarius Snail - Attacking others....

[RaymondL]

I purchased 2 Nassarius snails not too long ago, and added some Astrea and Trochus snails a day ago. To my dismay, I saw one Nassarius on top of one of the other snails, which was flipped upside down as if it's trying to eat it. Now I'm wondering what is happening here....perhaps these aren't Nassarius snails, and something else, and is such behavior normal?

 

[TX_REEF]

they do appear to be nassarius. Do they have sufficient food to eat in the form of leftovers? If not, they could be hunting other snails because they're starving, or the other snails they are eating are already sick, injured or dead.

 

[RaymondL]

they do appear to be nassarius. Do they have sufficient food to eat in the form of leftovers? If not, they could be hunting other snails because they're starving, or the other snails they are eating are already sick, injured or dead.

Thanks for confirming. The other snails, I've had to put in my other tank, so they won't get killed. They otherwise are healthy.

I'm now suspecting that there's not enough food like you suggested. I'll drop some pellets in I guess.

 

[TX_REEF]

Thanks for confirming. The other snails, I've had to put in my other tank, so they won't get killed. They otherwise are healthy.

I'm now suspecting that there's not enough food like you suggested. I'll drop some pellets in I guess.

Great idea. You have to remember, Nassarius' generally preferred food is newly dead flesh. If you ever have the unfortunate instance of a fish dying in your tank, you'll see the nassarius go into hyperdrive like a bunch of little zombies hunting for the corpse.

I feed my cleanup crew directly once every 2 or 3 days after lights out, either with a chunk of raw deshelled shrimp, or hikari algae wafers (which despite the product name, contains animal protein, and works great for CUC feeding because they sink): https://amzn.to/48H44LY

 

[twentyleagues]

My thought they smelled death.

 

[Roatan Reef]

Snails get stuck to each other sometimes...not trying to eat each other, you should have saw my Mexican Grazer stuck to my fighting conch yesterday, it was comedy gold, until I pulled them apart.

 

[betareef]

Nassarius' generally preferred food is newly dead flesh.

They sure do. Took this picture as I walked along a tropical beach. Someone had dropped a piece of bait and ...

 

[Sochindashi]

My sabella lost its feather so it took like 1 week for it to do another one. And few hours after the sabella got its new “pompom” my two Nassarius jumped on the sabella to try to catch the worm out of its tube… they are bullying the sabella :/ I read on a 2007 forum people talking about nassarius killing animals and they concluded that they are very close to Whelks/welks which are carnivorous.. maybe nassarius are not only scavenger but also opportunist carnivorous on “weak”animals?