Astrea Snails

[CarmieJo]

I bought 5 astrea snails yesterday and slowly aclimated them. When I put them in my tank they were all stuck together in a clump and stayed that way until I went to be 4 hours later. When I got up this AM I couldn't find any of them and they are still MIA this evening. I have 4 hermit crabs, 1 cereith snail and a chromis plus all the stuff from my LR, LS. Should I worry?

 

[Matt Rise]

Strange...never heard of that. Astrea's are usually very active, grazing out in the open on the glass or rocks.

 

[scrmbld33]

do your hermits have new homes?

 

[Andrew]

Hermits are known to take snails shells. They may be in your sandbed or on your rocks. Sometimes I see my astrea snails in my sandbed,

 

[Lpabsolute]

I have some and have never had any prob. like this. Give them a couple of days or wait till your lights go off and get a flashlight to see if you can see them moving around at night. Good Luck

 

[CarmieJo]

The hermits are in their customary shells and there are no spare snail shells lying around. I wondered if they could be in my sand bed but couldn't find anything on the internet about that. It's just been one day and I've not had a NH3 spike so I guess I'll just wait for them to show up!
:fish2:

 

[a4twenty]

astraea don't like sand because they can't right themselves. if you dumped them in as a clump they are left as easy targets for your crabs. even if the crabs don't get them they sometimes just can't get turned over and die.

you should get some empty shells from your LFS because the crabs WILL kill your snails if no new homes are provided, or even if the get hungry enough. ( depending on type )

 

[CarmieJo]

I'd already put some extra shells in b/c I'd read that the hermits would kill snails for their shells. The snails are no longer AWOL but did not account for their absence! I've now seen them all over my tank, on the glass, the powerheads, the rocks and even on the sand. They are doing their job, a huge patch of algae on the panel over my overflow is gone!

I did put them in as a clump b/c that was how they were in the bag. Even after aclimating for an hour they were still all stuck together. Should I have seperated them? If so how would you go about doing that?

Thanks.