AAAARRRRRGGG! Snails dead

[dino]

Please help me. Here's the scenario. I put in 3 so-called tiger trochus snails when I started my tank. Only one survives today. Two months later I put 3 astrea snails in my tank and they all died within three days. A few days ago I bought four more trochus snails and one died as soon as I put it in the tank. Another looks like it's on its way out and the other two larger ones appear to be doin' great. It seems that only the largest survive, since the last survivor of the previous batch of trochus was also the largest and the astrea were all small. The snails and everthing else that came with my live rock seem to be doing great, so I don't think my water is that bad. What gives? I don't want to be a snail murderer. Thanks.
Dino

[HMN]

How did you acclimate the snails. Supposedly astrea snails are real sensitive to rapid salinity changes, but I don't know about Trochus snails. You might want to try using the drip method for acclimation. It takes a lot of time but it is less stressfull for the animal.
What are your water parameters? Knowing more about your tank will definetley assist people in accessing your problem.

Good Luck


P.S. Where did you find Trochus snails in this area

[This message has been edited by HMN (edited 08-07-2000).]

[dino]

For all snails, I just floated the bag for a few minutes, added a half cup of tank water to the bag, waited a few more minutes, and then I just dumped them in. As far as parameters go, my ph is about 8.3-8.5, temp about 90, and calcium is at 475-500. Oh yeah, and my hydrometer reads about 1.023. I got my first batch of trochus from Peninsula Tropicals in San Carlos(they only had them for a couple weeks). My second batch is from Reef Science in Danville. These batches look nothing alike, with the former resembling astrea snails and the latter having stripes and more coralline on them.

[inga]

The situation could be attributed to one or a combination of many factors...

1. Predators (certain hermit crabs, certain snails, etc.)
2. Insufficient food (quantity or type)
3. Poor acclimation
4. Poor condition of snails at time of purchase

Dr. Shimek has an excellent article on Grazing Snails (http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/july/wb/default.asp). One of the sections details why snails perish in the mini-reef.

HTH!

~ Inga

[OrionN]

Dino,
There are several things you stated that may be the cause of high snail mortality in your tank. Certainly, you have poor acclimation technique. You need to do better because invertebrates are more sensitive to temp and salinity changes (very general statement). Your tank temperature is also rather high. Try to lower it to the average of 83 or less. Temp in the high 80 and 90 degree is stressful if not deadly for many organisms.
What about other parameters of the water?



------------------
Minh Nguyen
Visit my reef at:
http://sites.netscape.net/austinnguyen/homepage

[Steve Richardson]

A little snail food for thought: (From Ron Shimek articles...)

Where are you getting your snails? Whatever the case, verify the salinity where they are coming from, and check against your own. If there is a significant difference, you may have to take extra acclimation time.

Also, the 'dealer' has to acclimate them as well, or else they may live for a few weeks, but can be gonners after you have had them for a few week more.

"...Snail tissues often seem to be composed of thin layers of tissue that are very filmy and diaphanous. As a result of this, they often suffer significant damage during water changes or during transport from a dealer’s to an aquarist’s tank. The circulatory system of snails may be very complex (see Figure 4) and many of the vessels and channels can rupture under stresses caused by changes in salinity. The vessels in the kidney are numerous and delicate and may rupture if the animal is not slowly acclimated from one set of water conditions to another. Such an animal will die in a few minutes to a few weeks. Acclimation time may need to be on the order of five to 10 hours for maximal survival."
http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/july/wb/default.asp
http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/nov/wb/default.asp

hth,

-Steve R

[rshimek]

Hi,

Thanks, Steve, I couldn't have said it better.... :D

Dino, your major problem is insufficient acclimation. These animals have to have their surrounding salinity adjusted very slowly.

http://smilecwm.tripod.com/net4/popworm.gif

Cheers, Ron

[Fred Lewis]

I concur with the above but must put an emphasis on your tank's temperature.

Speaking from experience, I have had a few high temp days and as soon as the temp rolls close to 90 I will immediately see Turbo snail mortality.

It happens like clockwork every time.

Cheers....

[Steve Richardson]

whoa.

Nice catch Fred. I didnt see that.

90 is kinda high...

-S

[dino]

I'm sorry, but my tank temp. is really around 80. The 90 degree temp. is a typo. Even I know to keep the temperature around 80ish! I kinda figured it was my acclimation, as I heard that snails are pretty sensative to changes in water chemistry. That would explain why many died right away while the larger(and presumably stronger) ones survived. Since I probably need a little help in the acclimation department, could any of you out there tell me how to go about this or at least point me to some literature? Thanks for all your help guys. Dino

[HMN]

I am new to reefs ... experts, feel free to correct me. Here is how i acclimate freshwater fish and the few astreas that I have bought:

1. Have 5 gallons of fresh seawater ready to replenish water used in the acclimation process.
2. Place newly aquired specimen and lfs water into a 5 gallons bucket. (if it is cold in your house you may want top set your thermostat to the same temp as your tank).
3. Use small diameter airline tubing to start a siphon from main tank to bucket.
4. tie a knot in tubing and adjust tightness according to desired flow of water.
5. once bucket is full(anywhere from 1 hr. to 5 hrs. depending on flow rate) net out specimen and place in display tank.
6. use fresh saltwater to replenish tank.

You get a water change and healthier critters :) Since I adopted this method I haven't lost a fish ;)

Hosea

[HMN]

oops

[This message has been edited by HMN (edited 08-08-2000).]

[cloak]

You might want to take the bag (with air still inside) and float it lengthwise. Get a razorblade and reach under the water and make a 1" cut in the bottom of the bag. Be carefull when you do this because if you do it to fast or press to hard the air will escape. Be gentle when you make the cut.
From there you can walk away for 6,8,10 hours if you want, you could probably leave them in the bag overnight and release them in the morning.
Good luck.

[YZ]

Here's what I did: get 2 two liter bottles.
Cut the very top round off one. The bag will sit in this one and they fit perfect in em, unless the bags are the huge ones.

With the other I cut a small enough hole for tubing to fit and siliconed the tubing to the cap. (actually I already had the cap for bbs) Then attach a plastic airline regulator and cut a small enough hole to plug on the bottom.
Throw the air line in the bottle with the bag and drip away. About every couple hours I pour about half the water out of the bag maybe more.

I like the idea about cutting the bag in the tank though.

[This message has been edited by YZ (edited 08-08-2000).]

[Frisco]

Try a drip acclimation and you should be one large step closer to success. They're not lying when they say they're very sensitive to salinity changes - I've tried that experiment so you need not repeat it. It's true! My usual story I use as a comparison is the way people concentrate orange juice - just fill a semi-premeable bag with OJ and float it in some concentrated salt water. You can watch the water in the OJ diffuse into the salt water - if osmotic pressure gradients can do this they can undoubtedly wreak havoc on soft bodied animals like snails. If it's not the salinity, you could just have some pretty noxious water. How long have they survived?

[dino]

1999
posted 08-09-2000 09:29 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Try a drip acclimation and you should be one large step closer to success. They're not lying when they say they're very sensitive to salinity changes - I've tried that experiment so you need not repeat it. It's true! My usual story I use as a comparison is the way people concentrate orange juice - just fill a semi-premeable bag with OJ and float it in some concentrated salt water. You can watch the water in the OJ diffuse into the salt water - if osmotic pressure gradients can do this they can undoubtedly wreak havoc on soft bodied animals like snails. If it's not the salinity, you could just have some pretty noxious water. How long have they survived?

Frisco -

All snails that made it through the initial acclimation are still doing well. I have one from about eight months ago that's cruisin' around and eating algea like mad. The surviving trochus snails from my recent purchase are so far doing well. I would like to add that various clams, snails, and bugs that came with my live rock have survived and seem to even be growing. Thus even though I don't test anymore, I think it's safe to assume that my water is ok.
How long do you think is an appropriate time to drip acclimate? Thanks. Dino

[Frisco]

I think it's probably safe to assume that your water could be really dirty just from one snail death in the tank - let alone several... If you neither test the water, and haven't done MASSIVE water changes after each death, you could be in for a surprise...

[Frisco]

Oh sorry - about your time question... I think Ron acclimates over the course of a business day... I don't really have many snails and haven't done this for quite a while... the last time I did it - I took about 2.5 hours and didn't have any deaths... but it's hard to generalize without knowing anything about the relative difference in salinity, pH, etc between the two tanks... How big is the tank?

[dino]

Frisco -

I pretty much do large water changes on a monthly or bi-monthly basis, and my tank is a 29 gal with lots of macro algea. Maybe I should start testing again though. In any case, I decided to have one more go at it and got three astrea snails yesterday morning. This time, however, I used a method similar to one described to me by another board member. I floated the bag and then punched a small hole in it below the tanks water line. This I let float all day with the snails being released around midnight. When I woke up this morning they were out and about and eating. I think it worked, though it's too early to tell for sure. However, in my previous attempts one or more snails were upside down on the substrate and the rest weren't moving when this amount of time had elapsed. Now I have some hope for my snail-rearing future. I'll keep everbody posted as to my/their progress.
Dino

[Staceon]

Are you using RO water? Back when I used tap I couldn't keep snails alive even though fish and corals were fine.

[HMN]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dino:


I floated the bag and then punched a small hole in it below the tanks water line. This I let float all day with the snails being released around midnightDino<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Seems a little risky too me. I would be worried about introducing pathogens from the dealers tank. With the amount of turnover in an LFS, even tanks in the best stores are bound to have nasties in their water.
Maybe I am wrong .. but I would rather err on the side of precaution than lose expensive livestock.

Hosea


[This message has been edited by HMN (edited 08-10-2000).]

[gas4544]

This is just the information I need. Today I am expecting a snail shipment from PA. It sure would have been a shame to acclimate my new snails too quickly. Now I know why I recently lost a couple of locally purchased Tiger Trochus snails.

[nick danger]

Yes, 90 is very high.

With one dying immediately I would maybe rule out predation, but I had a SINGLE hermit, a beautiful blue and black "fiji" hermit, wipe out 4 turbos and 30+ astreas in less than a week. He was a terror and went back to whence he came (well, not Fiji, but the LFS at least).

ND

[dino]

By the way, the new snails I purchased a little while ago are still doing great! I guess it really must have been my acclimation method that did the others in, as my previous attempts at snails resulted in at least one death by this time. Thank god for boards like this where knowledgable people hang out. Thanks guys. dino

[dragon0121]

A BIG pat on the back to the RC community! Another educational thread that worked!

By the way, the LFS method is open bag and dump :eek: . No wonder I don't want to buy snails from them!

[Steve Richardson]

Dont hold it against the LFS... they won't know until someone tells them.

Print off the articles I reference above, highlight the juicy bits, (so they wont have to read too much :rolleyes: ), and give them a copy (or 5).

Just say, "here, I found this... it might make your customers critters live longer...not to mention your own."

:D

-S


[This message has been edited by Steve Richardson (edited 08-18-2000).]