Little Puffs of "Smoke"?

[FishyReef]

So I'm sitting here watching my tank and all of a sudden I see what I can only describe as little puffs of white "smoke" coming out of the top of one of my rocks. Obviously I know its not smoke, but I had to investigate. The organism causing these appears to be a snail or slug of some sort that has a whitish foot and a shell or dorsal side that is light grey in color with v-shaped white markings. It has long antennae and is pretty flat. I would guess it is a few centimeters in length, but can't really tell because I can only see the top part of it down inside the rock. I tried my best to get a pic with both my regular camera and my phone, but no luck. Does anyone have any idea what this is?

 

[Bifferwine]

It sounds like a stomatella snail -- a very common reef safe hitch hiker. Their shells look kind of flat, like a fingernail. And the smoke is sperm. :)

 

[FishyReef]

Well how is that for an interesting day at work then ;) My colleagues are already excited about watching the clownfish porn that's going on in my tank LOL

Seriously though, are the markings that I described what you would see on the stomatella? It is hard for me to tell from the angle whether the shell is flat or not since this guy is pretty far down in a crevice in my pukani rock. The closest markings I've seen to this before are on my nerite snails, but its not quite the same - this critter is lighter in color and has very distinct white v-shapes on it. I looked at the common hitchhikers and pest links that Hannah posted awhile back and didn't see anything there that looked similar to this patterning.

 

[Bifferwine]

Is it a sundial snail?

 

[FishyReef]

Maybe, Biff.... I've been googling pics of sundials and collonista snails since my last reply. It doesn't really look the same as the sundial... I tried to go pull it out of the tank to get a better look at it, but it has moved on and isn't there anymore. I'm thinking it may be closer to a collonista, but its really hard to tell. I'm going to keep a very close eye out for this guy again and hope I can find him. If it is a sundial snail, then that might explain why I've lost some zoanthids, but on the other hand if it were a sundial then I would think I'd be losing more of them. None of the pics I googled look exactly like this guy, but sundial and collostial are closest. The only big difference I see with the collostial is the pics online appear to be more of a brown and white pattern rather than grey and white....

 

[Bifferwine]

Collonistas are very small -- like the size of a pinhead, or a grain of rice at the largest.

 

[FishyReef]

Well, then its not a collonista.... damn I hope its not a sundial :(

 

[chichimom79]

I have a collinista about the same size. At least I think it's a collinista ;)

Hmmm, the link won't post....

Anyway, it is about 1/8-1/4 inch?

 

[chichimom79]

LF ID confirmation (Collinista I believe) - Reef Central Online Community