# Slug, snail? Can this be harmful?



## themann42 (Apr 12, 2005)

does anybody know what this thing is? it's very small as you can see. i've killed 4 of them in one of my tanks because i didn't know what they were. looks kinda like a slug, but usually slugs are fatter. also looks like a worm, but i wouldn't imagine worms would crawl on the glass.


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## OneTwentySix (Nov 11, 2004)

Looks like a Nemertean to me. I wrote up a brief thing that can be found here, just scroll down to the Nemertean part: 

http://www.dendroboard.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=19814


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## themann42 (Apr 12, 2005)

thanks a lot i think you're right.


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## CanadianAmphibian (Jul 27, 2006)

I have some of those too. I should get rid of them. :twisted:


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## Josh_Leisenring (Jun 19, 2005)

Yup, looks like a nemertian. I've got those little nasties in one of my vivs. They're not particularly harmful, but they eat FFs, and will therefore be competing with your frogs for food, especially if you get a lot of them. I don't know of any way of getting rid of them beyond CO2 bombing your viv, though. If you see them, kill them. 

- Josh


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

I have noticed over the years of keeping vivariums that the different bugs, mites, worms, slugs, snails, millipedes, etc. will bloom out for a while, then something else seems to short-cut their ability to take over, and they disappear. While slugs do make holes in plants, and at first I was vengeful about getting rid of them in the paludarium, doing tricks like baiting with beer, etc,. now they have settled down in to acceptable numbers, and I only pick off those I see obviously crawling on the glass or a plant. Something else is keeping them in control, down to very small numbers. All other critters, seem to appear and then disappear before appearing again, perhaps years later. The tiny flat snails that inhabit about half of my vivariums seem to be totally harmless to plants, don't appear to eat eggs, and when they accidentally get into a brome axil with an imitator tadpole, provide an extra food source. The tads rip them out of their shells and eat them. Except for wiping the obviously crawling stuff off the inside of the glass, mostly to see in better, I no longer worry about any kind of bug identification or active control of them. Most of them live on organic material, fungi, or even each other, perhaps. If our purpose, which mine is, is to have a biologically recycling process going on, as best we can do it, there's going to be a lot of life in there going on that we might not think is very attractive. But if we get nervous or neurotic about our particular taste in what bugs are attractive, sterilize the entire tank, then we also sterilize and interrupt the entire recycling process by killing off more useful organisms than the visible ones that are annoying our sensitivities. None of these things normally occurring in vivariums that we worry about are detrimental to our dart frogs. The worst infestation I've ever had was introducing a bromeliad with some scale insects on it that are so isolated with their waxy layer, that control was impossible. I had to simple remove and destroy the infested plants and replace them with healthy ones. 

Keep things sanitary, but don't sterilize.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

This is very interesting Patty. Over the years I’ve spent reefing I’ve seen one supposed pest after another bloom and then disappear. At first I did crazy things like adding malachite green and hoping all of my precious inverts would survive. Now a days I usually just wait the pest out. They all seem to fall by the wayside sooner or later. Balance in all things I geuess.


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## Josh_Leisenring (Jun 19, 2005)

Heh, well, I've been waiting over a year for my nemertean bloom to die back. :evil: If they were in anything other than a 10 vert, I'd be more concerned, but, as it is, they're still annoying. Paricularly the way they litter the leaf surfaces and glass with dessicated hydei husks. But, as mentioned above, I'm not ready to gas the tank, as that would most likely kill off everything else in the viv as well. That's the same reason I don't gas the snails I have in another viv. Hopefully they're numbers will die back eventually... :? 

- Josh


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

I should have mentioned that what you get in the tanks may also be largely dependent on where you live. We don't have nearly the variety of insects that adapt to tropical plants and environments in S.E. Idaho as one will find in Florida, as an example. So I am speaking from a rather different experience of relative destructiveness. All of my slugs and snails must have come with the imported plants or soil originally, because we simply don't have them outdoors in my particular area of Idaho. The agricultural pests that do exist here are almost always plant specific and don't live long in the tropical vivariums.


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