Snails dying

[Txag96]

I have checked the basic parameters of my tank and nothing was way out of whack. My PH was a little low, but in the past 2 weeks 3 of my Nassarius snails have died. One of which took a few days. He would fall off and be upside down in the sand and I would pick him up and turn him over. Then the next day same thing.
I also lost one Turbo. Not sure why, but my Cleaner shrimp, 2 peppermints, and 3 Emerald Crabs are fine.
Any ideas on why? The tank has always had RO water except for the initial water which was dechlorinated and mixed right. From there on I did a 30 Gallon Water Change and have done 10-20 Gallon Water changes each week since. Sometimes I will buy already mixed salt water from the 2 LFS in my area.

 

[Tahoe61]

Do they have enough to eat? How large and how old is the tank?

 

[Txag96]

Tank was started on 29 November and it is a 60 Gal tank with about 75 lbs of Live Rock. I have never had a ton of algae in the tank and rarely have to clean the glass.

 

[CodyRVA]

+1 @Tahoe61 , what's your NO3 and PO4 at? I had a spike and constantly found my snails upside down when I got home from work. It was no longer an issue once i got the nutrients under control.

 

[Txag96]

Nitrates and Nitrites and Phos were all in line.

 

[CodyRVA]

Nitrates and Nitrites and Phos were all in line.

They might be starving. Are you finding empty shells or dead snails? If the snails are starving, I'd imagine your emeralds are as well.

 

[Txag96]

two I found were empty. The latest one was in for a while and then later in the day gone. The emeralds are doing fine so far.

 

[CodyRVA]

two I found were empty. The latest one was in for a while and then later in the day gone. The emeralds are doing fine so far.

Emeralds might be eating the snails, I say eating, not killing.

 

[Txag96]

Agreed . I don't think they are attacking

 

[CodyRVA]

Agreed . I don't think they are attacking

As mentioned, the snails could be starving and dying, then your crabs could be eating them which is why they seem to be doing ok. Do you have any coral? Shrimp can literally eat seemingly nothing and live so that doesn't surprise me much that they're doing ok.

 

[Txag96]

I have one Green Bubble Anemone and also one cluster of Sun Polyps. I am waiting to upgrade lighting before I dive too far into the corals. 2 Clowns, 3 Chromies, and 1 Fox face. All fairly small and young when they were put into the tank over the last 2 months and all doing fine.

 

[CodyRVA]

Are your other snails doing ok or are they slowly all dying off?

 

[Txag96]

The others seem to be ok so far.

 

[ahiggins]

is there any rusted out tank components? You might want to take a look to see if you have any iron or copper making its way into your tank although I suspect your shrimp would be the first to go if it was that :/

 

[cjd]

They are starving to death. We don't need as many as those reef tank clean up crew packages like to sell us. BRS TV has a good video on a clean up crew on their 52 weeks of reefing you tube channel .

 

[CodyRVA]

The others seem to be ok so far.

Keep an eye on them, if any die, remove them ASAP. My guess is still starving so I wouldn't add any more for a while. Keep in mind, many times they do just die off, but be safe and wait it out.

 

[Txag96]

I had one more that wasn't looking good so I moved the other two I had along with him into the sump. It is pretty bad with algae down there as I keep the light on a lot for the chaeto and with no clean up crew it is pretty good with algae. They are all doing fine now. We shall see.
Thanks for the tips.