snail mortality

[dbacksrat]

I don't understand snails (or women for that matter, but don't get me started)--I just lost an astrea and a trochus within hours of each other

we've had a late heat wave here (103 F) and my tank was at 87 degrees F on sunday ( )
I haven't introduced anything except for a large turbo snail two weeks ago...water parameters are fine except for temp...so I guess my question is: do you have variable success with snails? I wonder if mine are collected in the Gulf of Mexico (just 4 hours away), and thus the warmer temps of a tropical aquarium kill them

 

[JNevaril]

I know absolutley nothing about snails, but my 'best' guess would be the temp.

.....i dunno...

 

[aresgod]

well I don't think I can help you with the women part, but snails are really sensitive. They are one of the more sensitive inverts and when we get them in at the pet store they have one of the higher die off rates, not initially but over the next couple weeks there are always a good number that die, and i spend inumerable hours trying to find dead snails in the invert tanks. I suspect they high temp swing might have had some effect on them. also i am not sure if you are aware but astrea are semi tidal and if they live completely submerged their life expectancy is less than a year. My guess is the astrea might have died before you discovered it( I never notice mine in and around the tank, it seems like a miracle that you even spotted it) and if it did have time to sit, maybe a small amonia spike, but enough to kill the trochus, and not enough to show up on your tests. Your idea that they come from the Gulf is an interesting one, but I suspect collection efforts there have been severly hampered over the last two months because of hurricanes. But your LFS would know where they are coming from, it would be interesting to try to get some indo-pacific snails and see if you have a better success rate. Sorry if this was long and didn't help much, but let us know how it works out.
Brahm

 

[wayne]

I've managed to lose all my snails over a few days before, and I never figured out if it was enviromental or a parasite

 

[FishGeek]

I seem to have more bad luck with shrimp than snails.

 

[KahluaZzZ]

Hey dbacksrat...when my water was around 85-86 this summer, i lost all my astreas but none of my bumble bees and nassarius. It took 3 weeks of hooooot summer to kill'em all, but each days i lost at least one. They were big and got them from the start but still couldn't manage the heat. Turbos and astreas are used to cooler temp.
They are very good grazers but i think i'll pass and if i need to get other snails my choice would be nassarius. I noticed every snails got slower when my tank was "boiling", except nassarius...same speed, same work.

 

[JustinP]

I maintain a constant 76-78 F and this temp has worked well for my snails (Astreas and Turbos) as I've noticed that they all have actually grown in size over the past year after recently looking at some pics I took back then. I haven't bought any since. I also agree that a temp swing like you had is the likely culprit. Interesting also about Astreas being tidal. It makes sense now because mine will perch on my overflow rim and magnetic algae scraper completely out of the water for hours!

 

[dbacksrat]

I meant Gulf of California, where water temps are significantly cooler...my bad

my train of thought just derailed, so I may be back later tonight with something smart to say