HELP! All my snails are dying!

[Anonymous]

Tank specs:
72 gallon
80-100 lbs of LR
tank inhabitants: One firefish, One PJ Cardinal, one cleaner shrimp, several hermit crabs, green star polyps, frogspawn, mushrooms, and ten or so very sick snails.

SG is a bit high=1.028....I just found this out with my new refractometer, but it has been this way for months, so this was not a sudden change. I have started to bring it down VERY slowly.
Temp=77F with NO fluctuation from day to night.
pH=8.3
Ammonia=0
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=0 (purchased a new test to confirm this)
Calcium is a little low=380-400ppm
Kh is also just a tad low=100-110


Everything in the tank looks great and, as you can see above, water quality is pristene. In the last two seeks I have lost two trochus snails and several turbos. They become lathargic and fall over a lot and then they just die. The last trochus in the tank hasn't moved in over a week, but he's still alive...he's not eating and he just sticks to the rock in one spot. The last trochus that dies did the same thing and was just dead the other morning.

Today I found five turbos on their backs...I have never had to flip that many in one day before.

What can this be? All other inhabitants look healthy. Corals look great and open fine, cleaner shrimp looks healthy and eats well, hermits look fine, and the fish are fat and happy.

Can it be a snail disease?

My copper test is malfunctioning, but if this were some metal poisoning wouldn't the corals or the shrimp start getting sick before all the snails?

Could my shrooms be battling my other corals and poisoning the water? I do run fresh carbon all the time and these corals lived in closer quarters in last tank with no problems.

Thanks for your input everyone!

 

[Anonymous]

Bump.

Sorry to bring this to the top, but can I get some input here? Snails are still falling over.

Has anyone ever seen this happen?

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

I've seen that kind of thing happen, but usually when I've seen it in the past there was an easy explanation like high nitrates or something.

For some reason though I can't keep red-foot turbos alive for anything. I have everything else growing like mad in my tank, everything tests perfect, but I'll try one red-foot and he'll look great for 2 days, then do like yours--peel off the glass and just flop onto his back and die. :? I"ve never figured out why. Sorry!

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Sharky. It's good to hear an experienced person has had the same problem.

 

[Lostmind]

I have the same problem with margarita snails now. I just lost 2 today. that makes 4 left out of 12 that have been in the tank 2 months. I do have 20 cerith that lay eggs regularily and 10 nass. that leave egg trails on the glass daily.

When I first started adding snails, I added 12 turbos. my tests showed 0,0,0 for amm, nitrite and nitrate so I thought I was good to go on the turbos. Within a week, I was down to 6.

I acclimate my snails over 2 hour period... so I dont think its that.

Sorry I have no useful info manny, but I also have similar probs.

 

[Anonymous]

On other forums, I have read MANY similar experiences. Even though it has been discounted as a reason, I tend to think that this is a snail disease.

I brought in a blue linkia star that died a few weeks later and it never looked too good...a few days later, I lost my sand sifting star and it had been healthy in my tank for many months.

I don't think fish are the only ones that get sick in our tanks.

 

[StevenPro]

I've seen that kind of thing happen, but usually when I've seen it in the past there was an easy explanation like high nitrates or something.

For some reason though I can't keep red-foot turbos alive for anything. I have everything else growing like mad in my tank, everything tests perfect, but I'll try one red-foot and he'll look great for 2 days, then do like yours--peel off the glass and just flop onto his back and die. :? I"ve never figured out why. Sorry!

Sharkky,
If we are thinking about the same things, those red-foot turbos are a temperate species that do poorly at warm temperatures.

 

[Anonymous]

On other forums, I have read MANY similar experiences. Even though it has been discounted as a reason, I tend to think that this is a snail disease.

I brought in a blue linkia star that died a few weeks later and it never looked too good...a few days later, I lost my sand sifting star and it had been healthy in my tank for many months.

I don't think fish are the only ones that get sick in our tanks.

Blue linkias are notorious for being almost impossible to acclimate. Their problem is almost always related to water quality. They need extraordinarily slow acclimations--like in the neighborhood of 6hr+ drip acclimations. Unfortunately almost none of them get that in the LFS, so that middleman link is what does them in. Plus some ppl think they have a nutritional requirement that's just almost impossible to meet in aquaria.

 

[Anonymous]

On other forums, I have read MANY similar experiences. Even though it has been discounted as a reason, I tend to think that this is a snail disease.

I brought in a blue linkia star that died a few weeks later and it never looked too good...a few days later, I lost my sand sifting star and it had been healthy in my tank for many months.

I don't think fish are the only ones that get sick in our tanks.

Blue linkias are notorious for being almost impossible to acclimate. Their problem is almost always related to water quality. They need extraordinarily slow acclimations--like in the neighborhood of 6hr+ drip acclimations. Unfortunately almost none of them get that in the LFS, so that middleman link is what does them in. Plus some ppl think they have a nutritional requirement that's just almost impossible to meet in aquaria.

I think mine had that starfish bacteria. It is too strange that my sandsifting star perished only a few days after the blue linkia AND I had a marked decrease in the tiny starfish that populated my tank....it has since taken two months for me to start seeing them again.

 

[Anonymous]

Ahhh, yeah that could definitely be a possibility then!

 

[StevenPro]

What kind of time frame was there between these two events; deaths of starfish and then snails?

 

[Bluetangclan]

I have had a problem like this for months now. I cant have any snail larger than a small turbo. Anything bigger just dies. This includes conches as well. Little ones do ok, same as my smaller snails do great, once they get big or if I add big snails, they stop moving and a couple days later they are FUBAR. No clue why, nitrates are fine, shrimp do great, just somehting in the water kills my big snails.
As mentioned red footed are cooler water snails, I found that out the hard way early on. I think margaritas fall in the same catagory but thats just an offhand personal theory and I have nothing to back that up. Havent even looked up info on them, just they have similar soft bodies to red footed and the few I have had lasted as long as the red footed.

 

[Lostmind]

actually, my margarita snails are the ones I am having the most problems with...

I am down to 3 left in my tank....