Quarantine of small, non-sessile inverts? (snails, brittlestars, crabs)

[Crazed]

Hi! I understand the importance of quarantining corals and other sessile invertabrates that tend to bring a lot of pests, but what about the smaller ones? I'm talking things like snails, crabs (not hermit crabs), brittlestars and shrimps; things I'm all planning to get.

Do you need to quarantine these animals? If so, for how long, what should you be looking for, and how would you feed them? I don't see the benefit putting them into quarantine would provide, other than "washing" off any microscopic parasites, so please enlighten me, if it's necessary. The big article on quarantining on ReefKeeping seemed to focus on sessile invertebrates like corals.

Plus, I'm almost ready to put my first fish into my main tank, and I don't have any cleanup crew other than what arrived as hitchhikers, so I don't think waiting 4 weeks to add snails would be a good idea.

Thanks!

 

[mscarpena]

I do not QT them, but I look over them well before putting them in the tank. Snails can have pyramid snails that eat them as well as clams.

 

[Crazed]

Thanks for the opinion. Anyone else have thoughts? I'd like to get several different viewpoints, if at all possible.

 

[Airwolf75]

I QT for 2 weeks, and look for hydroids, parasite snails, and make sure any fish parasites have time to get rinsed off. Sometimes the annoying red flatworms come on the shell.

 

[Crazed]

Mm, okay. Still looking for more opinions if anyone has them, but to me it seems like a safe bet would be to put my snails/stars/crabs/shrimp into the QT - as soon as the fish go into the DT - for a few days to "rinse", then put them into the DT? I'm still not sure how I'll be able to see parasites on them, so I figure rinsing them for a few days would be the best bet. Do you need to feed them during this time?

Also, I recall reading somewhere that snails need to be acclimated slowly, since they're very sensitive. Just wanted to know if that was true.

Thanks!

 

[Romulox234]

Ive never acclimated my snails, i just let em float in the bag in my tank for half an hour to get used to the temp then just put em in.

But i heard brittle stars need too be drip acclimated slowly for 3 hours but that seems like more precatuaniory than actually making the diffrenece between life and death.

The only thing is that with stars i read they dont do ell if they touch air so just put it in ur tank and let it go

 

[suta4242]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15307012#post15307012 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Crazed

Also, I recall reading somewhere that snails need to be acclimated slowly, since they're very sensitive. Just wanted to know if that was true.

Thanks!

Depends on
(1) the type of snail and
(2) how different your parameters - especially sg - are from that of the new snail's water.

I've bought trcohus and turbos interstate and they've been shipped dry. I've just dropped them straight in. But some cowries have been more sensitive. My water usually has an sg of 1.026 and so does the shop I buy inverts from. But another shop keeps their ornamental shrimp at 1.023 so you'd be silly not to drip them.

 

[olaf]

I have a turbo snail that has some type of limpet looking thing on it. It doesn't leave the shell but moves around on top of the shell. What is this?

 

[Romulox234]

I would take that off just to be sure

but to me its just a snail its not like some super rare 1000 dollar fish u know, i mean i dont think itd die if u just drop it on

 

[Romulox234]

I would take that off just to be sure

but to me its just a snail its not like some super rare 1000 dollar fish u know, i mean i dont think itd die if u just drop it in