mermaidwannabe
02-13-2011, 02:06 AM
I have trapdoor, coldwater snails.
As I've posted earlier, the tips of the spirals of their shells have been eroding away and have either turned white at the tips, or have become encrusted with something white.
My pH is 7.5, my kh 5 and my gh 89.5. My level of phosphate is between 0.50 and 1. There is no copper in my tank.
I have little to no algae, so I regularly drop algae pellets into the tank. Not only do my fish like them, but the purpose is also to feed my snails. They have repeatedly ignored them, however.
Occasionally, I'll see one of them creeping up the glass, and I can only hope it is feeding on the biofilm and finding nutrition there.
One snail finally died. I had it outside of the tank in some water in my sink, because the fish started picking at the eroded area on its shell, which became quite large. I also noticed its operculum ajar instead of either completely open or completely closed. It rarely moved. So I took it out of the tank and continued to provide an algae pellet for it, softened up, but it still just sat in the same spot in the sink and didn't eat it. Finally, it began to smell and fell apart. So I got rid of it.
In recent months, my snails have been barely active, at all. They lay upside down on the substrate with their trapdoors tightly shut. Occasionally, one will crawl up the glass, but not nearly as often as they once did.
I am trying to figure out:
1. What is causing the tips of their shells to turn white and erode away, and
2. Why they won't eat the algae pellets.
I suspect my snails are starving to death, and the one that died actually did starve, in my opinion.
I try to feed them, but they just won't eat what I give them, and there isn't sufficient algae in the tank for them to feed off of, unless the biofilm is providing them nutrition.
And that's my third question: Are they getting nutrition from the biofilm on the glass?
The one person I spoke with about this seemed to think there should already be sufficient calcium in the tank with my pH, kh and gh levels where they are. Calcium deficiency, in this person's opinion, shouldn't be their problem.
Can anyone shed any light on this at all? I tried inquiring about this on the aquatic snail forum, and nobody responded. Surely, it's not that uncommon a problem ...
-- mermaidwannabe
As I've posted earlier, the tips of the spirals of their shells have been eroding away and have either turned white at the tips, or have become encrusted with something white.
My pH is 7.5, my kh 5 and my gh 89.5. My level of phosphate is between 0.50 and 1. There is no copper in my tank.
I have little to no algae, so I regularly drop algae pellets into the tank. Not only do my fish like them, but the purpose is also to feed my snails. They have repeatedly ignored them, however.
Occasionally, I'll see one of them creeping up the glass, and I can only hope it is feeding on the biofilm and finding nutrition there.
One snail finally died. I had it outside of the tank in some water in my sink, because the fish started picking at the eroded area on its shell, which became quite large. I also noticed its operculum ajar instead of either completely open or completely closed. It rarely moved. So I took it out of the tank and continued to provide an algae pellet for it, softened up, but it still just sat in the same spot in the sink and didn't eat it. Finally, it began to smell and fell apart. So I got rid of it.
In recent months, my snails have been barely active, at all. They lay upside down on the substrate with their trapdoors tightly shut. Occasionally, one will crawl up the glass, but not nearly as often as they once did.
I am trying to figure out:
1. What is causing the tips of their shells to turn white and erode away, and
2. Why they won't eat the algae pellets.
I suspect my snails are starving to death, and the one that died actually did starve, in my opinion.
I try to feed them, but they just won't eat what I give them, and there isn't sufficient algae in the tank for them to feed off of, unless the biofilm is providing them nutrition.
And that's my third question: Are they getting nutrition from the biofilm on the glass?
The one person I spoke with about this seemed to think there should already be sufficient calcium in the tank with my pH, kh and gh levels where they are. Calcium deficiency, in this person's opinion, shouldn't be their problem.
Can anyone shed any light on this at all? I tried inquiring about this on the aquatic snail forum, and nobody responded. Surely, it's not that uncommon a problem ...
-- mermaidwannabe