New Snails Introduced - not doing well...

[mlolm]

Hi Everyone,

Beginner here, this is my first planted tank. It is a bit small. I bought a new tank, a much bigger one that I will setup in the next few weeks. But in the meantime I wanted to get some cool snails since algae in my small tank is still an issue. I bought two small snails. I dont know what kind of snails they are, i could go back to the petshop to get the exact name if that helps us.

I did the normal water adjustment and added them about two weeks ago. At first one was fairly active, the other was a bit more shy. After a day they both were moving about feeding on the algae in my tank. By the third day I noticed they would fall over on their backs alot. Then i'd wait to see if they could right themselves on their own. They did, at one point one of them was almost completely out of his shell to right himself. I was worried maybe they would get stuck on their backs, one stopped moving completely and you could see he was slightly out of his shell by a milimeter. I righted him because he didnt move for a whole 24 hours. Now both have been sitting in the same positoin, without moving at all for about 3 days. They are not feeding, or moving, at all, day or night. I'm not sure if they are even alive at this point.

It seems they may not like my water, or temparature. I have attached my water readings with the most recent one from last weekend. Water temp is: 25 Celcius.

Any ideas? I will also try to check with the petshop today if they are still open.

 

[FreshyFresh]

Welcome! Very cool looking little tank! Love bettas. The problem with bettas is.. atleast with the ones I've kept is, they will pick at snails, especially the tentacles of larger snails. Do your snails have trap-doors on them? They look like mystery snails to me.

 

[mlolm]

Hi,

Thanks for the thoughts. They do have trapdoors on them. These guys are pretty small, and i watched them quite a bit the first few days. My Betta never snapped at them, he was curious and would kind of go up to them and sniff them or check them out, but never was aggressive. They now seem to be completely dormant and have not moved in almost a week, they might be dead. I'm not sure how to tell.

Does anything seem wrong with my water conditions? Could it be that?

 

[FreshyFresh]

Your nitrates are nice and low, which is a great thing. You do show some ammonia, but you could show some right after a water change if your water supply uses chloramine as opposed to chlorine for a disinfectant. I've had snails stay sealed up for days at at time, then they're out and about. Like said, I've also had it where bettas would pic at them, causing them to stay sealed up. You won't necessarily see it happen. Mystery snails are very tempting because of their long tentacles. Maybe try some Malaysian trumpet snails or rams horn snails.

 

[mlolm]

So I bought new snails. However, i moved the old ones to my little driftwood log and they started moving (a little bit). One kind of walked around a little then fell off the log. The other did the same and now is hanging out of his shell a little bit.

I pulled them out of the tank because i read you can tell they are dead if they stink really bad. They didnt stink. They are really low activity and mostly spend the time inside their shells on their back, but it appears they may still be alive. I dont know if this is normal activity for them or what. I found out they are called: https://www.aqualog.de/en/lexikon/cipangopaludina-leucythoides-2/

My next question is: are they sick, or is this normal behavior, these are my first snails.

Also I added two new snails: http://www.aqua4you.de/fischart1675.html

And so far they are cruising all over the tank eating algae. Now I have a small tank so I know this is too many snails for this small tank. But I got a bigger tank for xmas that I am preparing. It should be ready in 2-3 weeks. In the meantime, if they run out of alage to eat in the smaller tank, I will make some for them (read about putting stones + water in a cup in the sunlight).

Anyhow, my question is: when should i take the really low activity snails out? They hardly move at all and they could be sick. I dont want to infect my other snails and my betta in this small tank.

Here is a picture of one of them hanging out of his shell for hours at a time.

 

[mlolm]

Just an update for anyone who wants to know: The mystery snails i had died. I hope they were not sick or contaminated. My betta still seems healthy. And the new snails I added (dusky nerite) seem to be doing great. My algae is all cleared up, the nano cube tank is stable and doing well. And my new tank, fluval edge 2, is starting out well. I transferred one of my two dusky nerite snails in there to clean up some fungus on my driftwood and he is having an all-you-can eat buffet.

I have since been back to the petshop a few times and the tank i bought the mystery snails from doesnt look great, i think alot of the mystery snails in it have died. Lesson learned: pay close attention to the health of the ecosystem of the tank you are buying from in the petshop, this could give clues as to the health of the stock. I'm not sure quarantining is worth it in my case since i have very little stock in my tanks, but would make sense for tanks with more fish in it.

 

[JoshuaLongo01]

Ok so... The reason is your new tank has to get through the nitrogen process first. Get some regular fish first I reccomend molly or pladdy start with 1 to 3, three max I would say. Snails are very slow moving and why you need to start with some fish is because they produce algae. Once you have a good amount of algae you put some snails because that's what they eat. I reccomend keeping algae production natural because my friend tried a few times of buying algae produced from the store the snails died. Why pladys and Molly's? Because they have the most chance to survive problems in your tank. Don't start with anything like catfish because they might be able to stop the disease but they will die first. Your water will get cloudy in the nitrogen process so that's why you get Molly's or pladdys or both. Remember the genders. A new aquarium like yours is yet to be ready for babies. And most Molly's and sometimes pladdys eat the babies so only few survive. So give them places to hide. The genders if you look on the bottem of the fish the part that looks like a straight stick is male. and the one that looks like a triangle fin. Is female. Basics!

 

[JoshuaLongo01]

Oh and also snails are asexual reproduction so they don't need a mate to have babies. And either gender can have babies. They can do sexual reproduction as well. So in a week or to you will have more snails if they are taken care of correctly. And some snails eat the babies to so keep places to hide.

 

[JoshuaLongo01]

If its a problem and you don't have one put a heater in your tank because these fish are tropical my heater is 75 to 80 degrees for the water.Only goldfish types don't need heaters and those need huge tanks. So start with this