Snail identification

[DVal]

Just saw this snail. Looks similar to a nassarius, but not like the ones I've added to my tank. Shiny, smooth she'll. It cowabunga'd off my frag rack on an invisible mucas bungee cord and disappeared into the sand. Ive never seen a snail do that lol. Anybody know what it is? Is it a type of nassarius? It isn't on the glass in the second pic. Ignore the dirty glass. Hard to clean around the frag rack

 

[DDenny]

Need a better picture under white light or use a camera filter.

 

[duberii]

Perhaps some kind of marginella snail?

 

[Zach B]

Stomatella maybe?

 

[TriggerFinger]

Marginella snail. Scavengers that live in the sand but don’t get much bigger than that.

 

[DVal]

Need a better picture under white light or use a camera filter

He got away before I could adjust lights or get my filter.

 

[DVal]

Marginella snail. Scavengers that live in the sand but don’t get much bigger than that.

Yup. Thats exactly what it was. Just looked it up. Thanks guys.

 

[vetteguy53081]

very cool. These are often confused with whelk snails but much smaller. The Marginella snail is a small scavenger that will come out of the sandbed to eat leftover food in the tank. there are both the Common Marginella and the Glowing Marginella variety, and the Common Marginella is what you have pictured. These are small scavengers, with an adult size of about 1/2 of an inch. Three Marginella snails consume about as much food as one Nassarius and they breed easily. They are highly desired cleaner, but they look nice in the tank.

 

[Meloco14]

I just had one of these pop up in my tank, I had no idea what it was. It came out of the sand, grabbed a dwarf cerith, and took it back under the sand. I was worried it was a predatory snail, and at first thought it was an olive snail, but it's definitely marginella, looked exactly like the pic on reefcleaners. Any reports of marginellas being predatory? I'm not positive the cerith was alive. The marginella looked like it was climbing over it, then it turned and the cerith stuck to the "tail" of the marginella, which proceeded to bury itself in the sand, taking the cerith with it. I hope it's not feasting on my snails...