Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Me and Bigpumper are looking at late morning Saturday if the weather permits, otherwise Sunday for sure.

This has been bothering me for a while, but Neuticle-- is your username made after THE neuticle or is it just my imagination?

Be careful with some of the native snails--they've been known to harbor nasty parasites. It isn't found in the Gulf, but Ilyanassa obsoleta (Atl. coast) carries lovely things like the human lung fluke. Thankfully, those that you have are N. vibex, which aren't really known to harbor anything severe.[/i]

Yeah, my username is an artificial testicle for dogs, I think it's pretty hilarious.

As for the snails, I'm not too worried. The way I figure is, a ton of farmed live rock comes from the gulf, and people plunk that right in, and the snails you buy from retailers come from the same gulf.

The nerites I like to get are Vitta Usnea I can find them in great numbers and they are easily acclimated to full salt.

Yes, but live rock isn't an intermediate host for digenean trematode cercariae, either . Oddly enough, snails are some of the most frequent fluke intermediate hosts, so they are found on them pretty often--freshwater and marine.

I appreciate the insight my friend.

To be completely honest, the only local parasites that scare me are the isopods. I've seen some huge ones, especially on gar for some reason, it may be the large armor scales instead of smaller tight fitting scales.

Parasite smarasite. Just like hank has stated before, I, and he has purchased livestock from the lfs that has been more detrimental to our systems. Ive been fishing on the gulf for years and never seen ick on a fish. I have however caught speckled trout that had parasites in their flesh.

BigPumper wrote:Parasite smarasite. Just like hank has stated before, I, and he has purchased livestock from the lfs that has been more detrimental to our systems. Ive been fishing on the gulf for years and never seen ick on a fish. I have however caught speckled trout that had parasites in their flesh.

Luckily for the fish, the aren't always affected (depends upon the fluke species). In some cases with some snails that are caught and brought into the hobby, they affect humans--so I'd worry about yourself in some cases. Thinking "Hey, that won't happen to me" may be a bit unwise. Keep in mind that I work around all of these things very often and have handled them for years. Even so, I'm still very cautious about it. It isn't something to be taken lightly.

I bought the tank from Big Pumper he told me that you wanted to buy the Metal halides light that where on the tank. If that is still the case you can give me a call at 251-721-5370. Thanks

So I went back to sand island today and dug around dead animals (cleans out your nose quite well). I didn't see one snail. I am giving up on this. I just don't have the luck.

I'm heading out there to walk the dogs. I'll bring the camera, if I spot any, I'll try to take photos of how to find them.