• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Weird snail in tank - no shell at all but alive

louis_last

Member
Joined
23 Nov 2008
Messages
451
Location
Edinburgh / Dunbar - Scotland
I found what appears to be a snail without a shell crawling about while inspecting a tank today and I'm not sure what it is. I'll try and get some pictures but it's very small and my camera is struggling to focus on it. It's from my dwarf kuhli loach tank and I believe that if they were hungry enough they might prey on a snail but it seems to be moving around ok and has survived all day. Is it possible that a snail could survive being sucked out of its shell by a loach?
Has anyone encountered anything like this? The only snails I'm aware of being in there are red ramshorns but it doesn't look exactly like a ramshorn, it's antennae seem slightly different and it's not red but rather semi transparent. I can see some internal organs. It's 100% not a planaria because it has very distinct snail like antennae and it seems to have a kind of meaty part where the shell would normally be.
 
Here's a video I took through a magnifying glass. The most reasonable assumption seems to be that this is just a ramshorn which has been pulled out its shell by a dwaf kuhli but on the other hand on close inspection it seems quite different than any of my other ramshorns. This ones head seems to be broader with the antennae further apart and significantly shorter. Looks more like Physella acuta to me but I'm not aware of them being present in the tank.
I've either seen several of these recently or this same one has been living for quite a while without a shell. I never used to see the same thing when there were scarlet badis in the tank so I'm considering the possibility that it's either a ramshorn mutation or a different species that the badis used to eat.
Other possibilitites are that its shell has completely eroded away? When I look closely with the magnifying glass there doesn't appear to be any obvious damage to it, it just looks like a snail that's carrying a suction cup made of flesh around instead of a shell. from the side it almost looks like a snail with a mushroom on its back.
Obviously my red ramshorns are red and this thing is transparent to the point that I can see its organs and mouth working.
 
Back
Top