Another dead snail

[Gramazing]

I bought another mystery snail two days ago and it looks like it's gone the same way as the previous one. It's stopped moving and is hanging out of its shell. What could be the matter with my water? All the parameters are good, at least the ones I've tested: Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrates get to 20 then I do a water change. PH is about 7.8.

Could I have some metals in the water that I don't know about? I know copper is deadly to snails. Can I test for metals?

[rookie]

i dont know if you can test for metals but are you acclamating them

[Cristoff]

Yes you can test for copper and other metals. API has test kits for those. If you can't find them locally I recommend www.petsolutions.com

They usually have everything you could possibly want.

[Gramazing]

Rookie: yes, I acclimated them. Same as the fish, I float the bag for 30 minutes in the tank, open the bag and use a turkey baster to add tank water/remove bag water, do that several times over at 15 min intervals until the original water is almost all gone, then drop the guy in (I just tip the bag if it's a fish). He moved around for a while, stuck out his periscope but by the next day he stopped moving.

Cristoff: thanks, I'll see if my LFS has those for sale.

[rookie]

any acclamation is better than no acclamation but i would suggest the drip method its cheep easy and effective because you can acclamate them for hours to make sure they are ok. i did a simillar method to what you are doing now and i lost fish. when i switched to dripping havent lost a fish yet. i dont know if this is the source of your problem but i just thought i would try to help were i can. good luck

[Gramazing]

Yeah, I think the way I do it is not the cause. It takes me several hours so it's slow. Besides my last snail was going fine for several weeks until he slowed down and died.

The only correlation I can think of is about that time I switched from API dechlorinator to Seachem Prime, the stuff that detoxifies Nitrate as well.

Hmmm... maybe that answers my question about the hornwart. Perhaps it can't use detoxified nitrate.

[rookie]

i dont think it would be that because i use prime

lol sorry i got confused i thought this was about the hornwort lol. yea mabe the snail dont like the prime. i never heard of it but then again i never keept snails lol.

[VoidParadigm]

As far as I know snails are fine with prime.

What food are you feeding the tank inhabitants? Some companies have traces of copper in their food, which kills most, if not all, invertebrates.

[Gramazing]

As far as I know snails are fine with prime.

What food are you feeding the tank inhabitants? Some companies have traces of copper in their food, which kills most, if not all, invertebrates.Top fin Tropical flakes most of the time, also frozen bloodworms, frozen daphnia and freeze dried brine shrimp (Aqua Select) each once or twice a week.

[VoidParadigm]

Besides copper, too much ammonia, or under-feeding I don't know any causes of random quick snail-death.

Do you have proof the LFS was actually feeding their snails? Some places/people refuse to, stating that the snails "just eat algae" when Mystery/Apple/Brig snails really do much better with an immensely varied diet. And for that matter, do you supplement the diet of your snails? Mysteries can rarely survive on detritus and algae alone.

[Gramazing]

Besides copper, too much ammonia, or under-feeding I don't know any causes of random quick snail-death.

Do you have proof the LFS was actually feeding their snails? Some places/people refuse to, stating that the snails "just eat algae" when Mystery/Apple/Brig snails really do much better with an immensely varied diet. And for that matter, do you supplement the diet of your snails? Mysteries can rarely survive on detritus and algae alone. I'm wondering now whether I fed the first one enough. I should also add algae wafers to my feed list. I would sometimes drop part of a wafer near the snail and he'd eat it, also the occasional bit of kale or zucchini. But maybe not regularly enough.... I don't know about the LFS, whether they fed the thing or not.

Anyway this one started going immobile within a day. But as I write this it has actually moved (it's night time so maybe that has something to do with it), so maybe I was a bit premature. I will keep an eye on her/him/it. I dropped part of an algae wafer next to it, although there is certainly a lot of algae for it eat at the moment. He has got to earn his keep!

[Adrian]

Snails are very sensitive to copper, and nitrates. If too high it will distress them, and eventually kill them. I would try to drop your nitrates down to about 10ppm. 20 is a bit high for snails.

Metals in the water, particularly copper is a major no no for snails. Even some foods have chelated copper in them, so be careful. Read the ingrediants. If it has copper in it, avoid it and find a different food.

[Wild Turkey]

The food probably isnt it imo. If its copper its probably from your tap, the first thing I would do is test for copper, and the suggestion of lowering nitrates is also a good idea. 20 nitrates isnt killing them, but its better to eliminate it as a possible contribution and higher nitrates can cause other issues.

[VoidParadigm]

Agreed that it's probably copper or some other metal, was merely throwing the food idea out there to make sure the OP was aware it's often hard to keep them alive on just tank-algae-growth.

[Wild Turkey]

I meant the copper sulfate thats in some foods as mentioned by someone else, is probably not the killer, if its a lethal amount of copper it probably came from the tap

[Gramazing]

Well it's odd, he's not dead, just quiescent. He moved last night. This evening when I came home he was on the glass at the top and I accidentally bumped him when I moved an air line and he sank to the bottom and he's been sitting there ever since.

It's funny, he has had his little periscope sticking out a few times when he's not even near the top of the water. I wonder if snails are susceptible to water pressure? Do they have some kind of bladder inside them? The water he was in in Petsmart was only about 6 inches deep.

[Wild Turkey]

They have both a lung and gill, so they can breathe water but if conditions are bad or oxygen is low, they can stretch out their siphon and get a breathe from the surface

[Gramazing]

I've just been reading applesnail.net - that place is an amazing mine of information on snails! All put together by one guy and english is not his first language! Amazing effort. Anyway he says that if they don't move for days that means they are well fed. Maybe I didn't feed my previous snail enough:scry: He was always on the move until the last few days.

[Wild Turkey]

I've just been reading applesnail.net - that place is an amazing mine of information on snails! All put together by one guy and english is not his first language! Amazing effort. Anyway he says that if they don't move for days that means they are well fed. Maybe I didn't feed my previous snail enough:scry: He was always on the move until the last few days.

Lol i dunno, Applesnail.net isnt bad for info, But retreating into the shell is a sign of stress imo. If the snails are out of the shell and moving, it means they are healthy and happy. If your tank has an ammonia spike, the snails will go into their shells and or stop moving

I have kept hundreds of them in the past, and this has always been my experience.