snails dying

[Zach117]

I have recently had trouble over the last few months keeping snails in my tank (turbo, nassarius, cerith). After several days in my tank they seem to die off. All my levels seem to be fine ( ammonia-0, nitrite-0, nitrate- undetectable). My dwarf angel and false perc clown along with several hermits have been doing fine for months. I had an ick brake out about 6 months ago, and treated it with copper-based medication. Since I have heard snails do not do well with these; after many, many water changes I checked the copper level recently and it is undectable. Does any one have suggestions about what could be my problem?

 

[capncapo]

Just because you can't measure the level of copper in your tank doesn't mean that there's not enough in there to kill your snails.

It is most likely that copper IS killing them.

You'r better off to empty the tank of any sand and rock and replace them with new.

 

[Chappy]

Put a poly filter in your wetdry and let it run a couple of days. If you still have copper it should take it out of the water, you may even see a blue tint to the filter. If the copper is in your rock, your in trouble.

 

[romunov]

If copper's in water, what stops it from being in the rocks?

I think your tank is good for a FO or a terrarium...

 

[kmk2307]

Are any other invertebrates living in your aquarium (such as amphipods, bristle worms, etc)? Did you carefully acclimate the snails?

 

[eleodes]

a couple of snail-killing problems that i have experienced:

1. improper (low) salinity (when i was just starting and in my learning curve)

2. an apparent dinoflagellate bloom

 

[Mighty Quinn]

Re: snails dying

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6561466#post6561466 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Zach117
I have recently had trouble over the last few months keeping snails in my tank (turbo, nassarius, cerith). After several days in my tank they seem to die off. All my levels seem to be fine ( ammonia-0, nitrite-0, nitrate- undetectable). My dwarf angel and false perc clown along with several hermits have been doing fine for months. I had an ick brake out about 6 months ago, and treated it with copper-based medication. Since I have heard snails do not do well with these; after many, many water changes I checked the copper level recently and it is undectable. Does any one have suggestions about what could be my problem?

First of all: Kudos to you for keeping your nitrates at undetectable levels!

Now the bad news: I strongly suspect that the previous copper treatment is responsible for your snail deaths. The concentration of copper in NSW is 380 ng/L. That's 0.3 parts per billion or 0.0003 parts per million! The copper ions will bind with organic compounds and will, for lack of a better word, leach back into the water over time. Using the polyfilters will only remove the copper from the water column, not the copper bound to the organics.

For a nice discussion on how copper behaves in NSW, check out Randy Holmes-Farley's recent article called "What is Seawater?".

Bottom line is that copper is very toxic and measuring the copper levels in the water column is not necessarily a reliable metric for determining the exposure of your snails to the copper. Copper ions will bind to insoluble organics and slowly leach back into the water over time.

Regards,
Q

 

[dalane]

I have never done a copper treatment and I had all of my turbo snails die and all of my astrea snails are alive and well. I realized that the reason that this was happening is because the turbos did not tollerate the increase in temp over the summer months. I had to invest in a chiller. Just another idea...

 

[Mighty Quinn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6584625#post6584625 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dalane
I have never done a copper treatment and I had all of my turbo snails die and all of my astrea snails are alive and well. I realized that the reason that this was happening is because the turbos did not tollerate the increase in temp over the summer months. I had to invest in a chiller. Just another idea...

Hi dalane,

Very good point. Zach117 should monitor his temperature and make sure that his heater is not causing some temperature spikes throughout the day. However, the fact that he is having trouble with a variety of different snail species and that the snails die in a relatively short time suggests that the problem is not temperature related.

I have to admit that the copper thing is a tempting target and I may have latched onto that too quickly. Another possibility would be a some sort of snail predator in the tank.

Q

 

[gdm42001]

Zach117: What kind of Salt are you using?