So made an interesting observation. Since I got some gulf rock from Salty Bottom Reef, they came with about 4 whelks. They didn't go after any of my trochus snails, astreas, crabs, or tube worms. I did notice they wiped out my small limpets, but none of the huge ones (>1cm). The big thing is that there are zero vermetid snails left and none even showing up when normally I'd crush maybe 5-10 a week.
This is the type:
The reason I pulled them was because I needed to add berghia nudibranchs and I did see these immediately hunt down the blue velvet I added before.
Mike Paletta wrote about a similar species: https://reefbuilders.com/2023/06/02/pollia-fumosus-a-new-form-of-natural-vermetid-snail-control/
But those sound like indo Pacific species. These are definitely Caribbean.
I moved them to the 90g tank that's overrun with the large species of vermetids so we'll see what happens. They seemed to just be detritivores after running out of prey though in my sump. Anyone else have experience?
This is the type:
The reason I pulled them was because I needed to add berghia nudibranchs and I did see these immediately hunt down the blue velvet I added before.
Mike Paletta wrote about a similar species: https://reefbuilders.com/2023/06/02/pollia-fumosus-a-new-form-of-natural-vermetid-snail-control/
But those sound like indo Pacific species. These are definitely Caribbean.
I moved them to the 90g tank that's overrun with the large species of vermetids so we'll see what happens. They seemed to just be detritivores after running out of prey though in my sump. Anyone else have experience?