Dead snail, what to do?

[twiggyb]

I think it may have starved to death, I moved it to my qt while it was still alive and it could barely hold on to anything. It hasn't came out of it's shell for a few days so I'm assuming it's dead. I wanna keep the shell for future crabs when they get bigger, but I dnt want the little rotting body in my tank

 

[AHDOnline]

What type of snail? In most cases with for instance turbo snails, when they die they usually fall out of the shell if you pick it up.

 

[twiggyb]

The lfs said it was a turbo. It might still be alive but barely, there's little amphipods crawling inside pass the hard part that covers the opening so idk if it's alive or dead and if they're feeding on it or wut

 

[John&Steph]

Just leave it and a crab will jack the shell.

 

[twiggyb]

WIll they eat the snail? I dnt want it fouling the water

 

[romsoccer12]

if its big just manually remove the snail. you will know if its dead by smelling it. if you have lots of crabs, dont worry about it

 

[doTheEvolution]

Yeah let the crabs eat it. Do you have a small tank?

 

[twiggyb]

I have a 65 gallon tank with aboot 5 or 6 blue eyed hermits, one red legged and one blue legged hermit. It was dead so I took the body out and put the shell back in the main tank. I have 8 snails remaining, each aboot an inch in diameter. I've had the tank for almost 5 months now

 

[doTheEvolution]

For a 65 I don't think the dead snail will pollute the water too much, but you did the right thing. If you can easily take it out you should, but don't knock stuff over to get it. Do you plan on keeping coral? Those Turbo snails are bulldozers like Urchins, they can easily knock over well placed frags.

 

[twiggyb]

I know they are, I have a leather coral that kept falling because of them and it's polyps aren't coming out anymore. I have a frogspawn, star polyps, zoas and a neon green finger coral, so I was told, also a couple of mushroom polyps in a couple spots, oh and plating montipora. I have a bubble coarl but I think it's dying because I O.D.'d my tank on alk a couple of months ago. The snails did their job on cleanin all the algae though, and my coraline is starting to bloom everywhere so hopefully in another month or two it'll be nice and pinkish purple everywhere

 

[gunslingerone9]

smell it!!!

smell it!!!

the worst smell ever is a dead snail! you have to wash your hands multiple times to get the stench away. If it smells that bad its not good for any tank.