One of my snails is not doing well. At least, he hasn’t moved–it’s hard to tell with snails. I took like three hours to acclimate them to the salinity, and the other two are as happy as other proverbial mollusks, so I’m hoping it’s not anything I did wrong. ( I had no idea that snails were so fragile until I read up on acclimating them–my little hitchhiker Snail Bobs survived trips in a wet sack. Perhaps they are simply a hardier breed.) However, I am told that sometimes they don’t move for weeks, and if he’s dead, the other snails will be on top of him, eating him, so I shouldn’t worry yet.

The unhappy snail is one of two Astraea snails. His partner has left an ambling, meandering swath of clean space across the algae-fluffed glass. (I haven’t done more than a token cleaning of the glass until I get it cycled and a clean-up crew in here.)

The fascinating one, however, is Nassarius Bob. He’s huge (well, the size of my first thumb joint–that doesn’t sound huge, but it made quite a perspective shift in a 6-gallon tank, like adding a water buffalo to the back yard. The visual scale suddenly changed.) and digs around in the sandbed looking for carrion and detritus. A small molluskan jackal. He has a beautiful shell, tiny eyestalks, and an immense sensory siphon.  He’s also FAST for a snail. I mean, he cruises.

Nassarius snails (Bob looks like the one on the top, meaning apparently that he is a Super Tongan Nassarius. )