Hi,
We have been getting reports of the Margarita snails not lasting too long, especially in warmer reef tanks, so if your tank is above 79, good chance that is the problem.
We shipped several snails to Dr. Ron Shimek to ID and evaluate, he just published and article about snails in Tropic fish. From the research he has done, many of these snails are collected in colder waters and do not fair too well in reef tanks and also intertidal, so they sometimes need to get out of the water for a little while.
We are working on getting our suppliers to collect snails from warmer waters and i believe sometimes they do because the shape and color of the snails vary, but there is no way we can monitor where they collect.
Dr. Shimek is also recommending a much longer acclimation period then we have been recommending. He is saying at least 4 - 6 hours and this will reduce the stress on the snails a lot. I'm not sure how to do this when they are dryshipped, will have to ask him. He also mentioned, putting the snail on the glass out of the water until they attach and then they will move down into the water on there own without stress. Would take time, but sounds like that would be a good method.
We were sad to learn that most of our aquarium available snails are not the best for reef tanks and are hoping with Dr. Shimeks article plubished that more pressure will be put on the collectors to get us more suitable snails. We have found the trochus snails are very long lived in reef tanks, many years. They are poor shippers and very sensitive to acclimation, but if you get by that step, you are in good shape.
*as to the exact count, that is our policy now. We only include the exact amount because when we use to include free ones, we would get people tell us they had doas and not believe us when we told them we gave extras. It's such a small profit area that we were losing money, not sure if we make money on them now, but had to go back to exact numbers.
jason
