Turbo snail abandons shell??

[TXSea]

Why would a turbo snail do this? Mine abandoned his shell this morning and scurried up under a piece of LR.

[noahm]

No idea. It has happened a handful of documented times, but the snail generally dies pretty quickly. I believe one person had one live for quite a while, but it is generally a fatal change in homeownership.

[borderreef]

I've never heard of that. I did, however, have a blue leg hermit leave it's shell and lodge itself in a hole in a rock. Lived there for a couple of weeks before another crab dragged it out and had a crab salad.

[curlykid]

pics or it didn't happen.

[Whisperer]

I can't imagine a naked snail (stomatella comes close). You just discovered a new biologic phenomenon :D.

[TXSea]

pics or it didn't happen.

Ok, I don't come on here to post false happenings to waste people's time. Its shell was flipped on its backside and the snail was grasping onto the live rock. When I turned the shell over thinking it would help the snail... the snail was detached from the rock and quickly glided under the rock. The shell was completely empty. Someone mentioned that maybe I didn't have enough calcium in the water for it to grow it's shell so it abandoned it. Who the hell knows!

[SushiGirl]

They are attached inside their shells. If this gets broken, they can't reattach. If you don't have an aggressive clean up crew (crabs, shrimp) it might make it for a while. They don't usually abandoned shells, since they're typically attached.

I had that happen with a nassarius. It took it out & took pics, put it back in the tank and never saw it again...I'm sure the other nassarius snails ate it, they were always killing weak stuff in the tank.