Whelks vs. Clams

[fierceseaman]

Has anyone ever had a problem with whelks attacking your clams? I've heard that they would and I'm not sure if the snails in my tank are whelks or not. Considering yanking them all out if I can't figure it out.

[Mr. Fosi]

So your clams look stressed?

[fierceseaman]

Not at all. I don't have a clam yet. I'm worried about the possibility of whelks before I plop one in the tank.

[rottface4]

Yes, I had a buddy who put a clam in his tank and a whelk ate it over night. He was not aware of the whelk until he saw it eating his clam.

[Mr. Fosi]

I once had a whelk in my 5.5g but I only saw it at night.

 

What makes you think your snails might have whelks among them?

[fierceseaman]

Nothing except that nassarius (sp?) and whelks are hard to distinguish from each other according to melev's site. I know I have several nassarius but I'm not sure if there might be some whelks mixed in. I saw a couple of what I thought were nassarius snails crawling on the rockwork and from what I understood that was not normal behavior for a nassarius but is normal for a whelk.

[Mr. Fosi]

Interesting.

 

The information you have is good. If you are worried, you can pull them out, but I would still do some after-dark observation to ensure you don't have any nocturnal beasties.

[fierceseaman]

Yeah, I'll keep an eye on them, today it seems that they have been resting on the sand which is something that I understand whelks do not do. After I thought they might be whelks I fed them to see how they move on the sand and they move extremely rapidly also something supposedly that whelks cannot do so I'm hopefully that I'm overreacting but it never hurts to research something.