issue keeping snails alive.

jwilson · Aug 14, 2013

i can't seem to keep a snail alive more than a couple days. i tried 3 times, and they always die within a day or two. i have 5 fish, several hermits, and a cleaner shrimp that have been in the tank for about a year, and all my parameters looks great (mag is a little low, but seems to always be a little low). i had a plate coral die about 8 months ago that wiped out everything but the current inhabitants. i have gone through a complete bottle of carbon, and done several water changes to no avail. i'm stumped.
i'm ready to start getting my reef back going, but i don't want to start investing in any more corals until i can keep snails alive,

usctrack · Aug 14, 2013

Keep an eye on the hermits. They are often the culprit of my missing snails.

jwilson · Aug 14, 2013

that was one of my concerns, so i put a few in the sump, and one even made its way up the water fall, and all died in the same time frame.

H@rry · Aug 14, 2013

Have you checked for copper? Also, dinoflagellates (brown slimey stuff) will kill snails.

jwilson · Aug 14, 2013

i haven't checked for copper, but i don't know of any way it could of been introduced into the tank, and shouldn't the carbon of absorbed the copper? no dinoflagellates, but i have had a couple small red cyno issues. none big, but it's covered a rock or two before i got it taken care of.

H@rry · Aug 14, 2013

Copper can come from some surprizing sources. Have you had any plumbing work done? Any copper or brass that could come in contact with your water? Have any kids been playing around your tank that could have dropped a penny in? Snipersps had a tank crash when his grandson decided that the sump was a good place to store his tools (and electric drill has a good bit of copper in it).

jwilson · Aug 14, 2013

no plumbing work, no copper or brass anywhere around. my nephew is the only child small enough to do something like that, but he can't reach the tank, and i haven't seen anything in it. i may try and do a couple more water changes and try a couple snails to see what happens. i haven't tried to add any in a couple months. guess all i can do is try and hope at this point.

spscrazy · Aug 14, 2013

did you do a long acclimation drip on them? I was having trouble getting turbo snails to live very long when I first set up my tank years ago. read somewhere that inverts need a slow drip acclimation so now I take about 2 hours to acclimate them I use a small styro box with a heating pad on low wrapped in a towel under the box so the temp doesn't drop and one of those dripper things

jwilson · Aug 14, 2013

i tried a long slow acclimate, and i tried floating them for 15 minutes and adding them per ReefCleaners.org instructions.

i may swing by and grab a couple on my way home and see how they do. it's been a couple months since i've tried adding anything.

Chameleon · Aug 14, 2013

yeah a long acclimation seems to help my snails for sure. I put the bag I bring them home in in the sump and drop a drip line down and leave it until i remember later that day. I've acclimated anywhere from 2-16 hours this way and seem to have minimal losses. And I wouldn't recommend going to 16 hours but I forgot about them before I went to bed. Because the bag was in the sump I didn't have to worry about temp or overflowing issues. I still often lose a few within the first couple of weeks, but I think that may be how they were acclimated at the fish store or shipped depending on the methods by which I obtained them.

twelvefive · Aug 14, 2013

I just threw my snails in to the tank and they all survived.

jwilson · Aug 14, 2013

i guess we'll see if they survive, or if i murder some more in a couple days. going to stop and grab a couple on the way home and hope!

Tomoko Schum · Aug 14, 2013

>> all my parameters looks great <<

This means that your phosphate and nitrate levels are very low? Snails do not tolerate high PO4 or NO3.

jwilson · Aug 14, 2013

NO3 is below 10ppm, I don't remember the PO4 number off the top of my head, but it was well within the "safe" levels. I checked the mag again tonight, and surprise, it was low. I guess I need to figure out where the Mag is going before getting more snails. Maybe the low mag and snail death is related.

markkazdad · Aug 15, 2013

twelvefive said:
I just threw my snails in to the tank and they all survived.

Me too. OK, I didn't count them all -- there were too many.

Did you get your snails from reefcleaners.org or just follow their instructions? I've ordered from them twice and both times they've put so many extra snails in the order I could stand to lose a few. On the dwarf ceriths, I bet I had close to 50 extra. Even had one bonus hermit crab disguised as a Florida cerith (and survived the 3 day priority mail). For me, I'd spend $10-12 in gas just on the round trip to any store that sells snails, so a reefcleaners.org quick crew delivered to my door is a great value. Next time I want to order a quick crew with hermits, but Express Mail service seems to be 2 days to anywhere in our area, so I am not sure if that will work or not.

twelvefive · Aug 15, 2013

markkazdad said:
Me too. OK, I didn't count them all -- there were too many.

Did you get your snails from reefcleaners.org or just follow their instructions? I've ordered from them twice and both times they've put so many extra snails in the order I could stand to lose a few. On the dwarf ceriths, I bet I had close to 50 extra. Even had one bonus hermit crab disguised as a Florida cerith (and survived the 3 day priority mail). For me, I'd spend $10-12 in gas just on the round trip to any store that sells snails, so a reefcleaners.org quick crew delivered to my door is a great value. Next time I want to order a quick crew with hermits, but Express Mail service seems to be 2 days to anywhere in our area, so I am not sure if that will work or not.

I ordered from Snails to Go through Amazon, 100 Nassarius Snails for $20. He shipped them dry in a ziplock back, so there was really no point in acclimating them.

H@rry · Aug 15, 2013

If you ship them with just a wet paper towel all you have to do if float the bag for about 15 minutes to equalize the tempature and dump them in.

Tomoko Schum · Aug 15, 2013

Were your snails shipped during the summer? Was it overnight shipping?

Shipping snails during summer can be stressful. I remember that first group buy clean-up crew shipment (a priority mail) from an online shop that I organized years ago was a bust. The shipper replaced what was DOA without a charge and the majority of the snails in the 2nd shipment (replacement) was fine. I will not use a priority mail in the summer time any more even when a shipper offers it.

twelvefive · Aug 15, 2013

H@rry said:
If you ship them with just a wet paper towel all you have to do if float the bag for about 15 minutes to equalize the tempature and dump them in.

Not even a paper towel.

Tomoko Schum said:
Were your snails shipped during the summer? Was it overnight shipping?

Shipping snails during summer can be stressful. I remember that first group buy clean-up crew shipment (a priority mail) from an online shop that I organized years ago was a bust. The shipper replaced what was DOA without a charge and the majority of the snails in the 2nd shipment (replacement) was fine. I will not use a priority mail in the summer time any more even when a shipper offers it.

It was Alabama summer and priority mail. I knew it wouldn't sit on my doorstep for any amount of time, my wife or I are always home during the day so I wasn't worried about it.

jwilson · Aug 15, 2013

Markkazdad has offered to give me a couple cerith snails. if they survive more than the normal 72 hrs i'll looking into those Nassarius snails twelevefive!

edit~~. found guy that sells 300 cerith for $32.00 on Amazon