Apple Snail Tank

[mrburritoman]

So My wife and I bought a set of Apple snails for our tanks at home and her office and discovered that the boogers love to lay eggs. We are fine with this and let the eggs hatch in a breeder net and all seems to be going well until the snails keep laying clutch, after clutch, after clutch, etc. So 10 clutches later we are starting to wonder, wow maybe we should just setup a tank where these guys can just grow up to a size where we can sell them to a local pet store (one near us knows us by name and wants to buy them). We don't want to do this for a full time job or anything but it couldn't hurt since they are...snails after all.

So we purchase a very small tank (2.5gal), powerful filter (80GPM), and start the tank in a cycle. One day later we take the snails out of our tank and introduce them into the new tank and all seems well for a day or two then all of a sudden (overnight) the water just goes murky and foul smelling. I change out the filter, wait an hour, change it out again and the water starts to clear up but not enough. I do a 50% water change and it gets 25% better. I wait a day then do a 90% water change and it is doing much better but now I notice that more than 50% of my perfectly happy and live snails are dead and their shells are in a pile at the bottom of the tank. Now the remaining live snails are all clinging to the edge of the water in clumps with a few adventurous ones tooling around the bottom of the tank.

I have lots more clutches yet to hatch and don't want to lose another herd, what do I need to do?

Bear in mind that this is not long term, I just need to get these guys to pinkie size (0.25") and the pet store will buy them.

Tested the water quality and the ammonia is off the charts, all of the other levels are looking great. I have tried adding an ammonia detox at regular and metered intervals to control this but nothing seems to change it.

I have cycled many tanks and done this for a while now but this all-apple/mystery snail tank is just not clicking.

Thoughts?

[madagascariensis]

What is your cycling procedure?

[Tiari]

If you are changing out the filter cartridge, you are throwing out the cycle every time. Also a 2.5 gallon is WAY too small to grow clutches of apple snails. The amount of food, waste and slime that will be in that water could never get dispersed for so low water volume. Though they are babies, they wont be for long, and the water will become noxious quick, as each one requires food, and defecates. That's a huge amount. A snail breeder should be at minimum ten gallons with double the filtration for the tank, and, a pre-filter sponge over the intake so the snails won't go up it and die in the filters themselves.

[talldutchie]

So we purchase a very small tank (2.5gal), powerful filter (80GPM), and start the tank in a cycle. One day later we take the snails out of our tank and introduce them into the new tank and all seems well for a day or two then all of a sudden (overnight) the water just goes murky and foul smelling. I change out the filter, wait an hour, change it out again and the water starts to clear up but not enough. I do a 50% water change and it gets 25% better. I wait a day then do a 90% water change and it is doing much better but now I notice that more than 50% of my perfectly happy and live snails are dead and their shells are in a pile at the bottom of the tank. Now the remaining live snails are all clinging to the edge of the water in clumps with a few adventurous ones tooling around the bottom of the tank.

I have lots more clutches yet to hatch and don't want to lose another herd, what do I need to do?

Perhaps I'm missing something but when you start to cycle a tank it won'd be finished overnight. Even if you seed from one of your other tanks it still takes a few day to settle.

Additionally, as pointed out, the tank is way too small.

Return the survivors to one of your other tanks. Get somethign bigger (craigslist? Doesn't need to be fancy at all) Stick the new filter in one of your other tanks for the time being.

[mrburritoman]

Thanks for the suggestions, I will start with a bigger tank and go from there. As far as the cycle, all I am doing is conditioning, waiting a while ~1 hour, then adding it to the tank add bacteria starter then test the heck out of it and watch for the spike of ammonia, add some ammonia detoxification to soften the blow, retest and when the tank cycles again it is easier for everything in it.

I have never had this much trouble with an aquarium before but I guess, as you guys say, these snails in such a dense population can really wreck a tank quickly. I will just shelve this tank as a "first aid" option for one of my other bigger tanks.

Thanks guys!