How to prevent auto mounting of a volume in macOS High Sierra?
To prevent a volume from automatically mounting you need to know the filesystem type and either the volume name or volume UUID. This information can be found by using the Terminal application command diskutil info name, where name is the volume name. For example, volume names can be found under Devices in the sidebar of a Finder application window.

On my computer, the output from the command diskutil info "Macintosh HD" is given below.

   Device Identifier:        disk2s1
   Device Node:              /dev/disk2s1
   Whole:                    No
   Part of Whole:            disk2

   Volume Name:              Macintosh HD
   Mounted:                  Yes
   Mount Point:              /Volumes/Macintosh HD

   Partition Type:           41504653-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   File System Personality:  APFS
   Type (Bundle):            apfs
   Name (User Visible):      APFS
   Owners:                   Disabled

   OS Can Be Installed:      Yes
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 Disk Image
   SMART Status:             Not Supported
   Volume UUID:              F21AD81B-B114-456C-B2A0-BF4452E4842D
   Disk / Partition UUID:    F21AD81B-B114-456C-B2A0-BF4452E4842D

   Disk Size:                1000.0 MB (999981056 Bytes) (exactly 1953088 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size:        4096 Bytes

   Volume Total Space:       1000.0 MB (999981056 Bytes) (exactly 1953088 512-Byte-Units)
   Volume Used Space:        3.4 MB (3416064 Bytes) (exactly 6672 512-Byte-Units) (0.3%)
   Volume Available Space:   996.6 MB (996564992 Bytes) (exactly 1946416 512-Byte-Units) (99.7%)
   Allocation Block Size:    4096 Bytes

   Read-Only Media:          No
   Read-Only Volume:         No

   Device Location:          External
   Removable Media:          Removable
   Media Removal:            Software-Activated


The pertinent lines are shown below.

   Volume Name:              Macintosh HD
   Type (Bundle):            apfs
   Volume UUID:              F21AD81B-B114-456C-B2A0-BF4452E4842D


Note: You can not use the Disk / Partition UUID, except when the Disk / Partition UUID is the same as the Volume UUID. 

Either of the lines given below could be added to the /etc/fstab file to prevent this volume from automatically mounting.

UUID=F21AD81B-B114-456C-B2A0-BF4452E4842D none apfs rw,noauto
LABEL=Macintosh\040HD none apfs rw,noauto


Note: The character sequence \040 is just the octal representation of the space character.