Why did my elephant snail die? (scutus antipodes)

[kloud3]

I have had my 30 g reef tank up and running for about 2 yrs now and have great success with my elephant snail but I came home to find him upside down and he had stretched up like a mushroom, he's definately dieing, I noticed him stretched like that the other day hanging underneath some live rock, above his foot but beneath the flaps also has a milky white color to it, but not a slime coming off of him, in the past 3 weeks I have raised the kh from 8 to 11, I've increased the calcium from 280 to 340, I've added a phosban reactor, and I've raised the salinity from 1.021 to 1.024, I have a huge variety of coral and they are all doing much better than they were, does anybody know what may have happened or if any of these would be the cause of it's death?

 

[coralnut99]

Hard to give an exact reason, but it looks like your water parameters were a bit out of whack. Snails or in this case, a keyhole limpet, are particularly sensitive to salinity swings.

 

[kloud3]

thank you so much for your reply, that solves the issue with my snails of all types always dieing, although it dosnt seem to effect my corals, i do let the salinity swing alot, im looking into a bigger tank and an auto top off

 

[coralnut99]

Salinity is releatively easy to keep in line. There are so many virtually free auto-top off methods that you can employ as you work on the up grade, etc. Just search the DIY forum, there's dozens of creative top-off systems in there. It's a basic step. Then you can automate when you're ready.

 

[gods child]

check your phosphate level

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

fwiw

fwiw

Scutus are short lived

 

[kloud3]

I hear that they are short lived but I got mine over a year ago and it was only about 1" long and it grew to at least 2.5 or 3" and my phosphates were only .15 or .2 when it happened and before my phosban reactor that I just added about a month ago they would get up to .7, does anybody know where I can order more of these?

 

[barjam]

These look pretty neat but they eat certain hard corals (all the ones related birdsnests) so I had to get rid of mine.

They are nearly impossible to get off the rocks without hurting them.

 

[kloud3]

Hmmm that's weird, the one I had never touched my green birdsnest, and when it came out it was way cooler than the birdsnest, I would way rather have 3 of these guys than my birdsnest if it was eating it, I think it was my favorite thing in my tank

 

[barjam]

A species can be know for it while individuals might not do it depending on the situation.

I had 6-7 in a 75 and they had a somewhat limited food supply. They went right for that type of coral. I believe it was a pink stylophora which is related to the birdsnests.

 

[coralnut99]

hmmm that's weird, the one i had never touched my green birdsnest, and when it came out it was way cooler than the birdsnest, i would way rather have 3 of these guys than my birdsnest if it was eating it, i think it was my favorite thing in my tank

+1