What would be a cause for snails dieing?

[hrrsncrg]

I have had 3 snails die in the last week. Everything else, fish, coral, cleaner shrimp and hermits are doing great. What would cause the snails to die?

What are your water perameters?

As of 7:00 pm...

Nitrates - 25 mg (High)
Amonia - 0 mg
pH - 7.7
Nitrites - 0 mg
Calcium - 450
Temp - 78
Alk - 9
Specific Gravity - 1.025

Please advise...

craig

 

[chemisfun11]

In my experience snails don't last forever. I replace them about every 6-8 months in small amounts. They can exhaust the food supply if you had algae problems or if you have hermits too, the crabs will go after the snails for their shells.

A water change might be in order to lower your nitrates and your pH seems on the low side.

 

[bertoni]

What type of snails are you losing? Many have life expectancies measured in decades, but starvation often shortens their lives in our tanks. How many do you have?

Is the pH really 7.7? That's very low. This article might help:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rhf/index.php

Also, you might find it useful to double-check some of your testing equipment. How are you measuring SG?

 

[hrrsncrg]

One thing I forgot to include, my tank is a 24g AquaPod. I started out with 9 snails and the three that have died have all been Mexican Turbos. The hermits are very small blue legged hermits and they do not touch the snails.

I was in the process of doing my weekly 15% water change when I found the snail. I dose once a week with Purple Up, and pH buffer. I am in the process of getting rid of an XS (1.5 in) Tang, my tank is not big enough for her. (So please do not bash me Tang Police.) She's going in my brother-in-law's 90g and he gets her this weekend. Hopefully pulling her and adding my macroalgae to my refugium on Sun will assist me in controlling my Nitrates.

The rest of the snails and my shrimp are doing great. I tend to agree that it's just nature but what worries me is all three I have found over the past week.

craig

 

[scrmbld33]

are there snail bodys in the shell? or just an empty shells, how do you acclimate them? i would suspect the hermits, mine assassanate at least one a week

 

[hrrsncrg]

I am testing with a swing arm hydrometer but I test 3 times to make sure my reading is accurate. The pH fluctuates because I dose with buffer. After dosing it gets as high as 8.3 but by the end of the week it is as low as 7.7.

craig

 

[piranhaking]

testing more than once wont help you if the hydrometer isnt accurate.

 

[hrrsncrg]

It's not the specific gravity. I think it is starvation like bartoni suggested. My tank has no algae at the moment. When I put them in the tank it was to take care of an green algae problem, and it has been taken care of. I plan on taking a few of them back to my LFS.

 

[sassyfishy]

I've heard it said before that pH fluctuations can kill snails. I've also heard that the Mexican turbo snails are temperate and don't tend to last all that long in our reef aquariums.

Maybe someone with more experience can chime in.

 

[RachelDex]

Stray voltage is a possibility as well.

 

[alans22]

dont forget bristle worms, i have had snails dissapearing for a long time and am a frequent observer of "lights off" activity...one morning i saw a grotesque yellowish bristle worm ccovering a turbo snail with mucus and its probiscus eye deep in snail gore. and i have still only seen this once and have not even seen mucus covered shells, but be on the lookout.