Margarita Snails upside down?

Lateralus_

New member
Did a 10% water change (distilled 0ppm water) on my 45 gal last night. Today all 3 of my margarita snails are upside down and not closed.

All other fish seem fine, I have 2 clowns, 1 wrasse and 1 bubble tip. Also my Starfish and nassarius snail seem fine too.

Could I have messed up the salinity during the water change? Thats the only thing I came up with when I did a search. My SG tester is one of those crappy fluval ones that stick on the side of the tank.

Other tank params are fine.

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite/Nitrate: 0
Phos: 0.2
 
Sorry to possibly be a bit abusive, just that, among other things, I believe a refractometer is very important for the accurate measurement of salinity, that every one with a reef tank must have one.

You might also consider getting 35 PPT calibration solution. Do not calibrate to RO/DI water
 
Being that the rest of the livestock seems to be ok, especially the starfish, the bubble tip, & the nassarius snails, I highly doubt the salinity is what's causing these snails to behave the way they are. It's something else IMO. (bad apples perhaps)
FWIW, I've been using a $7.99 floating glass hydrometer for about 15 years now without any problems. Go figure... "If you can't afford a refractometer get out of the hobby," please... :rolleyes:

Have you tried flipping the snails over at all? What happens? If they're not moving at all, you might want to give one a good whiff to make sure it's not dead.
 
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I started with a hydrometer and when I purchased a refractometer I found the results to be off by about 10%.
 
What kind of hydrometer? It's a shame sometimes when the floating glass hydrometers seemed to get lumped together with the plastic swing arm types.
 
Well, they are alive. I flipped them back, they are mostly staying still but they are moving their head/mouth around a lot like when they eat but they are doing it in the air, if that makes sense.

I have read they don't live long in aquarium environments, it's just strange this happened to all 3 at the same time after my water change. Maybe I stirred up some toxins or something?

My tank is only 4 months ago, got a bit of red slime and diatoms but not too much.
 
keep in mind that margarita snails are better suited for a cooler tank, though I've read that they can live in tropical temps short term. this is unfortunate because so many stores, big box and independent sell them as tropical snails.
 
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