After listening to one of the podcasts about pest eating nudibranch's I went hunting in the tank last night with a flashlight. I did manage to capture one unsuspecting poor victim. Is this a Stomatella varia, a poor innocent beneficial algae eater? From the picture(s) (which are poor) it seems so. Should I return him to the tank with a letter of appology and a pat on the hump ? How does one say sorry to an invertabrate?

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd269/dkone2007/100_1062-1.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd269/dkone2007/100_1065.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd269/dkone2007/100_1064.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd269/dkone2007/100_1062.jpg

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd269/dkone2007/100_1061.jpg

Kind Regards,
"The Nudibranch Terror!"

It's very hard to tell but those last couple of pics look like one. Is this what it looked like?

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o292/critters_album/stomatella-1.jpg

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o292/critters_album/stomatella.jpg

yea that would be one of the good guys. turn him back into the tank and let him continue to his cleaning duties.

Yep,. that's him - though mine didn't look so happy when I drug him outta there!

The other dead give away is the fact that they are the fastest snails I have ever seen! I think that with that tiny shell they are the sports cars of snails.

My little snail certainly took off like a sports car when I went digging for him !

yeah that little streamlined shell is very aero or should I say hydrodynamic :)

It was hard to get a picture of them. I was running all over the glass with a camera on a tripod.... not graceful at ALL.