waymack97":y9ivzffx said:
55 gallon i bought about 20 snails have around 5 left. it was assortment of snails turbo/nass/certh. most of the empty shells i found were turbos. i've had these guys for around 6 month with no problems i belive there is plenty to munch on. tank is 1 year 2 months old.
Depending on the size of the snails, 20 snails could easily be too many for your 55 gallon tank to support. A common series of events that people report in cases of mass snail death goes as follows:
1.) Lots of snails in the tank doing fine for many months
2.) Snails start to die
3.) Massive snail die off over the course of days or a couple weeks with only a few individuals remaining
4.) Starvation is discounted as a cause because there appears to be lots of algae in the tank to eat.
One possible explanation here is that the snails initially have enough to eat because they are small and/or the relatively new tank is still going through algae blooms. As the snails grow, they need more food. At the same time, the tank matures and there is less algae for them to eat. At some point one or more snails starve and die. The dead snails decompose and cause an algae bloom, but it is often too late for many of the starving snails that are too far gone to survive. What the aquarists sees is snails dying and lots of algae.
Another possibility is a sudden change in salinity or the introduction of a toxin, such as copper. What is your salinity? Are you using filtered water or tap? If you are using tap water, do you have copper pipes or copper fittings anywhere in the water line?
In any event, I would not go out and buy a bunch of replacement snails. Let your tank recouperate for a few weeks and reassess the situation. If the remaining snails appear to be doing ok, then go ahead and add another one if you feel you need it. The key is to go slow from here on out in order to minimize or eliminate future losses.
Hope this helps,
Q
