yellow snail

Must have snuck in on my new sun coral. Do you think it is reef safe?

 

Yes it does to appear to have snuck in with your Sun Coral. There is a nudibranch that eats Tubastrea. If it's not a true Sea Slug and has a shell chances are still good that it's eating your Sun Coral. Does it have a shell?

Pagoe Joe will have the specifics.

Edit: It does not look like Phestilla melanobrachia in that image.

 

Yes it has a yellow shell.
i put it in sump for now. So you think it eats corals?

 

IMOPE (and from what I've read, that of the majority), motile hitch hikers typically arrive in our tanks with their main food source, so yes, if it came in on a coral, it probably feeds on it.

 

Looks like it might be a wentletrap snail. They are coral eaters so it most likely came in on your sun coral eating it.

 

Epitonium billeeanum/Golden Wentletrap:

File:Epitonium billeeanum (Wentletrap).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

 

that is such a cool looking creature! I've never seen something like that. Isn't it interesting how many times, in this hobby very interesting/colorful creatures just aren't compatible with a reef

 

Good detective work, Corailline. You probably found it exactly, although it might be a close relative. Hard to tell much about the shell characteristics from the pics, although you can see it has a shell, and it does look generally like an Epitonium. The only other thing I can think of that it might be is Drupa grossularia. This species is yellow as a juvenile and has a yellow animal also, but I would expect the aperture to be narrower than it appears to be in the pics above. That species is also coral-associated, although usually with plating species of corals.

Cheers,




Don