What is growing on my snail? and on my rotifers?

[holy carp]

Or is it part of the snail? and part of the rotifers?

 

I haven't had a chance to clean the glass in a bit longer than usual, so now all the snails and pods are all over it.

 

The snail here is an astrea. I have a 3 in the tank, and they've been in there for a month and a half, but this is the first time I've seen these pinkish things. They only seem to be on this one as far as I can tell.

 

 

The green algae and coralline have always been on the shells of all the astrea and margaritas, but I'm pretty sure the pink stuff is new. It doesn't seem to move except by the current.

 

And in this picture, there's a small dark thing attached to the same snail:

It turned upside down from the prior photo, so it hadn't been visible before, but it was already there. Is it a baby snail? It almost looks like a miniature margarita, and I did have some nerites that layed a bunch of eggs a few weeks ago. All those egg patches on the rock seem to have opened up or flaked off.

 

Any ideas what the pink stuff or small dark snail-like attached thing are? (Amphipod?)

 

Also, I was curious to notice that many of the rotifers (I think?) on the glass have some crazy long tails. Many of those tails are more than 1"!

Sorry it's so tough to focus on those tiny little guys... They still scurry around on the glass just like the ones without tails... Normal? Abnormal? Just well endowed?

 

The tank parameters are

Mg = 1300

dKH= 9.0

Ca = 415

NO3 = 0.0

PO4 = 0.00

sg = 1.0255

 

 

 

[metrokat]

The snail shell could have hydroids. Cure for that is to carefully cover the hydroids with super glue gel.

[amphipod]

yes the things on the snail are hydroids, athecate hydroids , if you have a magnifying glass look closely at the tentacle tips, is there any small round ball at the tip or is it just a thin tapering tentacle?

Is the little snail thing moving around?

The last one is unusual, does that one move around?

When I say move around I mean does the tail move around?

[holy carp]

The snail is healthy and moves a lot. Mostly on the glass.

Those pink hydroids on the snail shell do not seem to move on their own. I have to find that snail again to inspect them more closely.

The little rotifer/pods move, but those tails seem to just flow in the currents.

[amphipod]

Last one looks a little bit like a type of copepod I think, I'm going to have to refresh my memory on Copepods, and hopefully find a narrower idea of which one it is. Just so I'm not barking up the wrong tree, does the last one have the copepod legs?

[holy carp]

The last little pods might be amphipods.

 

They don't really look like copepods to me. They have multiple pairs of legs that extend out to the sides, and they don't usually appear to have a pronounced hunch or long antennae. I usually see them scurrying around on the chaeto and on the glass when there's algae on it. Maybe they could be isopods? They are very small but seem a bit bigger than the tiny copepods - maybe 1mm long. I have lots of them, and they don't normally have tails. I noticed a few days earlier that one had a tail and thought it somehow got hold of a long alga filament. The next day there were 2, and the following day it looked like about half on the glass had those long tails. I cleaned the glass, and now they all seem tail-less again.

 

Are those athecate hydroids a concern? I came across something that described how you can electrocute them with a 9v battery... Or I could just take a toothbrush and rodi to the snail if necessary.

[amphipod]

Oh? This is an unusual situation, you see I was assuming the trailing thing could have been an egg case, but by the way you describe it it sounds like an asellota isopod, but with a trailing thing. First I assumed copepod because there are some species who have trailing egg cases. I did refresh myself on Copepoda, they have 2 egg cases usually for the ones who have trailing eggs, so that trailing thing shouldn't be eggs.

The trail actually reminds me of some parasitic worms called Nematomorpha. But those worms infect insects, and kill the host.

 

It could be bad, we first need to know of those tentacle tips.

[holy carp]

Here are the best pic I could get with my phone. They don't have the tails on them since I last cleaned the glass, but you can pretty clearly see the little critters and there's also a copepod near the top in the picture for scale. These guys came with the chaeto from my lfs and normally look like this when they're not sporting dragon-kite tails...

 

 

 

 

Athecate Hydroids?

This is the best picture I could get - I can try some more.

I fed the tank and they did start moving and extending/contracting.

The tentacles look very smooth-tipped as far as I can tell.

 

EDIT:

Here are 2 more shots one with and one without flash.

 

 

[amphipod]

Not a doubt, asellota isopods are the little bugs, I am super curious of the tail now. Have you ever seen it before?

 

I am pretty sure your hydroids are filifera, one of the three families of the athecate hydroids, they don't have the same stinging ability as the capitata hydroids who usually have small balls on the tentacle tips full of nemocysts. But that doesn't mean you're fully out of the red zone quite yet, how quickly are they reproducing?

[holy carp]

I hadn't seen the isopods spring tails that often, but it wasn't the first time. I originally thought they were eating at some hair algae. It's not easy to see them unless they are on the glass, and they don't really go on the glass that much unless I let it get a layer of algae. Got any experiment suggestions?

 

So far the hydroids are only on the snail, but I can't say how fast they've grown. I hadn't seen them until the first picture. Those astrea snails always had algae and coralline on them since I got them, so I didn't scrutinize closely enough to notice those pink hydroids.

 

Can snails survive an rodi bath? Would hydroids survive?Now might be the chance to get them out if they're a concern. (I have enough of a chore killing digitate hydroids)

[amphipod]

Maybe isolating the ones with strings and see what happens when the strings are shed?

 

The hydroids are probably not going to be dead from a brief freshwater bath. But I can say that if you have a razor knife you can scrape the main visible ones off and scrape the bases off until there is white shell showing that will surely get at least most of them off. And heck maybe you can make a little pest tank for them.

[holy carp]

Pest Fest 2015.

Sunday Sunday Sunday...

We have Boloceroides vs. Corynactis vs. Digitate Hydroids vs. Filifera Hydroids vs. Asellota Isopods with whips!

 

May the Best Pest WIN!!!

 

Ha ha. But researching doesn't seem to indicate these 'snail fur' Hydractinia echinata pose any concern. Apart from being evidentially immortal, they sound like filter feeders that grow almost exclusively on moving snail and hermit crab shells. Surprisingly I read they normally live in cold water. Would it be foolish to leave them? I know Pest Fest would suffer without the extra competitor...

[amphipod]

Lol pest fest I like it XD

 

you're on the right track, maybe its a different species than the cold water hydractinia? maybe you'll have all your snails furry snails in a few months lol. I don't know how foolish it would be, the larva seeks moving targets and corals don't move around really, but the snail could unintentionally bring the hydroids near a coral, so I say keep them unless a coral is hurt, then if that happens you can probably let them join pest fest, or make the snail with fur a new pest fest member.