ID Please? baby abalone?

[ReeferGirl]

hi- i dont have pictures of this animal yet, but it seems to be rapidly increasing. i bought a coral from Dolphin a while ago, and i noticed it had this crustacean of some sorts, in the bag, looked like an abalone. yellowish in color, really small, and it looks like there is a shell sitting on top, shaped just like an abalone, and hes got a normal snail like body. i always see them on the glass, never anywhere else. anyone know what the heck this thing is? it had babies and now i have a bunch in my tank on the glass. i'll try to take a picture, but just wanted to see if anyone knew what i was talkiing about.

 

[glee]

stomatella snail?

 

[A_Lee]

I second that
Is the shell all one piece? Or comprised of different pieces?

 

[badbread]

Does it look like this?

http://www.reefcorner.com/SpecimenSheets/stomatella_varia.htm

 

[ReeferGirl]

yeah it looks like that! is it bad???

 

[badbread]

Quite the contrary, they are excellent, peaceful, cute little scavengers.

 

[ReeferGirl]

oh good, cause they are really cute!!!! haha they are rapidly increasing in numbers, lol i hope they dont take over my tank bahaha

 

[GreshamH]

If they are rapidly increasing it's stomella your looking at and not the above. they look rather similar but cowries don't reproduce as rapidly as stomella, not by a long shot. in fact, I haven't heard of many (if any) reported actually breeding to size of those in aquaria.

[quote author=badbread link=topic=5488.msg68262#msg68262 date=1228932754]
Does it look like this?

http://www.reefcorner.com/SpecimenSheets/stomatella_varia.htm
[/quote]

Looks like some one posted the wrong pics. Those are cowries IMO, stomella have tails and black shells.

 

[glee]

ive seen my cleaner shrimp hunt, kill, and eat these...

 

[GreshamH]

They will do that

 

[ReeferGirl]

i know what a cowrie is, and those are one of my favorite types of shells, so yeah, its definitely not cowries. it looks kinda golden cream colored, and their shell is almost the same color as their flesh.

 

[GreshamH]

Just a few posts agao you said it looked like the cowrie posted? Can you get a picture?