Snail acclamation shock. Avoidance, recovery, species dependent?

[Bret Brinkmann]

I did a search on this and found very mixed results. I'd like to compile everyone's experiences to see if there are any patterns. I'm especially interested in any ways you may have helped them overcome shock once it was clear they were struggling.

Please include the following or as much of it as you know; acclamation technique
snail species: how many of each and how many lived.
salinity
water parameters: full on Triton if you have it or as much as you know.
temperature
lighting
vendor: if shipped from where to where, how long did they travel, and what time of year was it.
Any other info you think may be relevant.

Here is an example from a recent purchase of mine. Please post with each snail purchase in the future and I will put it all together and look for patterns. I will contact the vendors to see if I can get their water parameters for reference.

Floated for 15 minutes, then dumped only livestock in tank per vender suggestion. Wait as long as a week for them to become active. Keep lights off for 24 hours.
15 zig zag periwinkle, all lived I think. Hard to keep track.
6 Florida cerith, all lived.
8 Limpets, 1 DOA from shell getting ripped off during shipping, all others lived.
SG: 1.027
pH 7.9, NH3 0 ppm, NO2 0 ppm, NO3 0 ppm, Ca 380 ppm, Mg 1240 ppm, P 0 ppb, alk 10 dKH, Cu 0 ppm.
78F
20K LEDs
Reef Cleaners, from Port St. Lucie FL to Charlotte NC, 1 day, early December
Some became active within a few hours some took about 6 days. All snails are doing fine now two weeks later. Currently battling with dinos. Limpets not very good at staying on rocks. Had to flip many of them over after they fell off. This continued for about 2 weeks. Some also climbed out of the tank. I think this is normal limpet behavior but not entirely sure. One of them does a good job at staying on the rocks.

 

[Tahoe61]

My personal favorite snail are Cerith, Astraea, Turban and Trochus.

It's been my experience that if there is enough for the snails to eat in the way of algae, and you do not have snail predators such as larger hermits that a simple acclimation is fine. Of course you need to be mindful of specific gravity and temp but other than that no prolonged acclimation is needed.

SG tyically 1.024-26
Temp 74-78.
All lighting types secondary to multiple tanks.
Alk 7-8, Ca 350-450, do not test for phos or nitrates. Magnesium typically 1250-1350

I buy from LA, Petco and the LFS when needed.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Snails are super easy to acclimate, I just float them for 15 minutes and scoop them in. From my experience (turbo, margarita, narcissus, turban, cerith, astraea, etc) snails are the tanks of your reef tank, you really don't have to worry about them doing much besides knocking over corals and/or being knocked over and scooped out.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

I buy from LA, Petco and the LFS when needed.

Do you really buy from Petco? Every petco I've been to (only 2-3) has been atrocious in all regards of husbandry.

 

[Tahoe61]

Yup I buy from Petco, mine has decent husbandry.

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

...It's been my experience that if there is enough for the snails to eat in the way of algae, and you do not have snail predators such as larger hermits that a simple acclimation is fine. Of course you need to be mindful of specific gravity and temp but other than that no prolonged acclimation is needed.

SG tyically 1.024-26
Temp 74-78.
All lighting types secondary to multiple tanks.
Alk 7-8, Ca 350-450, do not test for phos or nitrates. Magnesium typically 1250-1350

I buy from LA, Petco and the LFS when needed.

It sounds like you are saying that acclamation depends on algae and predators. Can you elaborate? Also what do you mean lighting secondary? Do you know the water parameters for your Petco and LFS. And which type of snails you bought from each?

Snails are super easy to acclimate, I just float them for 15 minutes and scoop them in. From my experience (turbo, margarita, narcissus, turban, cerith, astraea, etc) snails are the tanks of your reef tank, you really don't have to worry about them doing much besides knocking over corals and/or being knocked over and scooped out.

I take it you have all of these in your tank now and used the same acclamation technique. Where did you get them from?

The reason I started this thread is because I see different people having different outcomes with the same type of snails from the same vendor using the same acclamation technique. That tells me there is some other variable not being taken into account.

I recently got some orange chestnut and ninja star astreas and they are not doing good at all. Lost over half. But all of the ceriths, of various types and from two different vendors, are doing great. All acclimated on the same day. I think some snails may require a certain acclamation technique but as I mentioned earlier, I can't find consistent results when I search on the topic. I'm hoping if I can get people to pool their experiences together with all the details, then a pattern will emerge.

 

[Swoody]

I did not know until after the fact that snails and crabs for that matter are pretty sensitive to the acclimation process and I just dumped my snails, ceriths and mex turbos into my tank (hermits too) and they all made it and then eight months later I was reading about them and find out that they are quite sensitive to aclimation and specific gravity etc. didn’t affect mine any... my sweet little Valentini Puffer on the other hand was their demise!!!

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

I take it you have all of these in your tank now and used the same acclamation technique. Where did you get them from?

Various places, some online, but mostly from my LFS. I've had most of them for months and have only lost one or two to predation from hermits and peppermint shrimp (I have two little devils that have been exiled to the far reaches of my refugium). My experience is that snails aren't picky, temperature acclimation could probably be skipped, I have no problems. TBH I actually only temperature acclimate for everything (ex: fish, corals, etc - I've never had a problem with it).

 

[mta_morrow]

I have purchased all my snails from reef cleaners or LFS. I follow the instructions from both which are the same, float them, dump them in. They all live.

 

[Tahoe61]

It sounds like you are saying that acclamation depends on algae and predators. Can you elaborate? Also what do you mean lighting secondary? Do you know the water parameters for your Petco and LFS. And which type of snails you bought from each?



I take it you have all of these in your tank now and used the same acclamation technique. Where did you get them from?

I have different lighting types to all tanks, MH, LED, T5.

No I do not know the parameters of the LFS or Petco.

I always buy the same snails from each location and on line: Astraea, Certh, Turbo.

Never do a prolonged or drip acclimation, never have, in decades. I dump snails and transport water in a bowl. Change out transport water over about 15 minutes with display water and that is it.