Question about Snails dying

lastduke

New member
sorry for transfering the post from "new hobby" to get more suggestion.

I have the problem to keep my snails, different kinds of snails, no one can last more than 3 weeks, whatever I acclimated them or not.
After My first post, I take the suggestions to monitor my copper, nitrate, salinity,ph.
My tank stable parameters:
Salinity: 1.025
copper:0
nitrate:0
PO4: none detectable, but I have the algae issue, I think I have PO4, but PO4 will not be harmful to snails, is it correct?


My tank unstable parameters:
CA: 420-450
ALK:9-11
PH: 8.15-8.3 (daytime and night)
Temp:79-81 DegF

Which one(s) killing my snails????


I have the nass snails, which I had no problem to keep them alive. I did try turbos, Margarita,Trochus,Astrea Snails.

I feed the brime shimpe every other day and there are algae all the time. BTW, I use RO/DI water from the beginning. I have used copper when I have a fish only tank which is my sump now, but it was long time ago and the tank has been empty and rinse at least five times. and the copper should kill any snails, not kill others instead of nass snails.


funny thing is , one of my nass hatched the eggs today, what should I do to keep the eggs? will the mom eat them?
 
What's the story with the rock in your tank--was this around when you dosed copper? Has the rock been around a while? Rocks can adsorb things and hold onto them for a while...
 
Could also be the type of alga you have. some alga contains toxins that can kill the snails that eat it. other type of snails could be not eating this alga or maybe immune to this toxine...?
snail acclimatation is a very delicate process and should be done mush slower than corals or fish acclimatation. Yu could also try dry acclimatation where you take the snaile for 25 min out of the water and then put it in above waterline and leave to go down on its own. This is said to allow the snail to excrete water and then acclimate itself to the new water as it goes in very slowly...
try to check the PH and salinity and tempreatur of hte water they come in and modify your acclimatation depending on the differrences...
 
I would say based on the info you have given, that it is either related to the copper from the past or other toxin or perhaps a predator. The parameters look fine. It may even be the Nass. snails if they aren't finding enough to eat. Have you ever seen those things attack a piece of shrimp? Not saying they are killing the other snails but wouldn't surprise me since they are surviving and the others aren't.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12871186#post12871186 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Todd March
What's the story with the rock in your tank--was this around when you dosed copper? Has the rock been around a while? Rocks can adsorb things and hold onto them for a while...

No when I dosed copper, the rock was not there. Even there is the copper left, it should kill all the snails. but my nass snails are very happy.....
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12871857#post12871857 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Ratpack
I would say based on the info you have given, that it is either related to the copper from the past or other toxin or perhaps a predator. The parameters look fine. It may even be the Nass. snails if they aren't finding enough to eat. Have you ever seen those things attack a piece of shrimp? Not saying they are killing the other snails but wouldn't surprise me since they are surviving and the others aren't.

If there is the copper left somehow, how can I clean them out? anything I can dose in and combine the Cu+ ?

I don't have the shimp in the tank and I did see the nass ate the dead snails. I don't think they killed other snails , all the other snails I put them in and they flipped up itself, I helped them to turned over and they flipped up later again. it looks like they don't want to lay down and touch my sand and rock, and they can not stick on the glass either.
 
BTW, what kind of aglae will kill the snails if they eat it. I have the hair algae, purple film ( i have no idea what name it is).....
 
maroun.c, thanks for the suggestion, I did try the acclimation and non-acclimation, the results are close....but I did not try the slow acclimation, what did you mean "try to check the PH and salinity and tempreatur of hte water they come in and modify your acclimatation depending on the differrences..." how to modify the acclimation ?
 
In regards to acclimation, this is what I do and so far I haven't lost any snails, except to hermit crabs. Take a long piece of airline tubing. Get a flow control valve for it and put it anywhere along the length of tubing. Place the snails and their ariginal water in a container and set below tanks water level. Use the airline tubing to start a siphon from the tank to the snail container. Reduce the flow to a drip or two every second with the valve. then let is do this for about 30 minutes or until it doubles the water volume. Then let the snails go in the display.
 
Thanks for sharing, Ratpack, I will try this acclimation maybe three weeks later, it will be the time I buy the next batch of snails.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12871199#post12871199 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Happyasaclam
It might be your temperture. Do you have a chiller? If you do, keep it at 77-78 degree

I really doubt that is the problem as I run my tank between 81F and 84F and my snails are fine (I'm trying to run my tank close to natural reef temps... ask GreenBean or read some of the articles Dr. Ron Shimek for more information on reef temps)

I mostly do the old school add a cup of water to the bag after the temps are equal and 15 minutes later drop the snails on the rocks right side up... might not be the best way to do it, but I've had no losses from shock that I am aware of... The only thing that seems to kill off my snails are the F'n hermit crabs that I KNEW I should have smashed with a hammer when IPSF sent them with my cleanup crew order... crabs are evil!!! :mad2:

lastduke, Are you SURE they are Nassarius and not a predatory Whelk of some kind? Some of those will eat snails (and clams and other stuff as well)
Whelks Article by Dr. Shimek
 
There is a worm that eats snails too. A type of bristle worm. It feeds at night and you must use stealth to see it. It will wipe out a snail population at 1-2 per night. Look at the snails in the morning and see if there's any slime over or near the shell. If so then you have the dreaded worm.

Read this article and look about halfway down the page for this critters name: Oenone fulgida

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-04/rs/
 
my brittle star eats my snails! and sometimes I forget to put water in and it gets mega salty, and the snails die.... rough for the snails.... naughty reef keeper@
 
i have thought about the bristle worm, I am not sure the snails all died because of it.
I bought 20 snails last weekend, now about 10 of them are lying on top of the sand bed, either flip over or down, I poked the ones fliped over, it retracted. What's wrong of them????
 
Read up on it. Snails usually get sent in wet newspaper. Then when they are sent to a store they enter the tank. If I remember correctly snails should go directly from the newspaper into the tank.

If you got snails from a tank in a store they will die after a while and the hermit crabs will steal the shells.
 
If you have a glass tank copper may have penetrated the silicone seams; if this is the case (and I not claiming it is) you may reseal the whole tank, convert to FOWLR or just replace it with a brand spanking new one.

Copper is definitely a major PITA.
 
Nope, that's the bad news.

Probably the easiest thing to do is to add a reactor (or canister filter) filled with Cuprisorb and leave it running for a few months, then add a few invertebrates to see if they survive, eventually the Cuprisorb will get rid of all the copper.
 
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