apos
Member
I added 4 cerith snails to my 55gal a few weeks ago. I drip acclimated them while floating the bag in my sump for 3 hours before adding them to the tank, and they started off looking healthy and eating. My tank has no shortage of things to eat. They basically buried themselves deep in the sand during the day, and then burst out at night to comb the bottoms of my LR (er, well, burst is a little too dynamic a word here I guess).
But as time went on, I saw fewer and fewer out at night (I can observe as late as from 11pm-2am or so), until now, where I can't seem to find any trace of them at any time, and haven't for two weeks now. I am assuming that they are dead at this point... the problem is, I can't find the bodies. I can't think of what would have killed all four so quickly, other than perhaps my substrate has nasty nutrient pockets that they went too deep into and gassed themselves.
Do these snails generally die under the sand? And if so, how the heck am I going to find their bodies to remove them (preferably before they rot and release more bad nutrients? I can't very well just stir up all my substrate, because that will release more trapped nutrients into my system, and if that is what killed the ceriths, I'll just hurt other things in my tank. But if they are dead, then I'd really like the shells to be out on the surface at least so that my hermits can use them.
I also wondered if my hermits could have killed them, but the fact that none of their shells are above the sand coupled with no hermits walking around in cerith shells seems to rule this possibility out.
Anyone have these snails in their system? Anyone experienced mysterious disappearances like this? Could they still be alive, and only briefly surfacing between 3am to 6am or so? That seems unlikely to me, and I don't see any evidence in the substrate of being moved around either.
But as time went on, I saw fewer and fewer out at night (I can observe as late as from 11pm-2am or so), until now, where I can't seem to find any trace of them at any time, and haven't for two weeks now. I am assuming that they are dead at this point... the problem is, I can't find the bodies. I can't think of what would have killed all four so quickly, other than perhaps my substrate has nasty nutrient pockets that they went too deep into and gassed themselves.
Do these snails generally die under the sand? And if so, how the heck am I going to find their bodies to remove them (preferably before they rot and release more bad nutrients? I can't very well just stir up all my substrate, because that will release more trapped nutrients into my system, and if that is what killed the ceriths, I'll just hurt other things in my tank. But if they are dead, then I'd really like the shells to be out on the surface at least so that my hermits can use them.
I also wondered if my hermits could have killed them, but the fact that none of their shells are above the sand coupled with no hermits walking around in cerith shells seems to rule this possibility out.
Anyone have these snails in their system? Anyone experienced mysterious disappearances like this? Could they still be alive, and only briefly surfacing between 3am to 6am or so? That seems unlikely to me, and I don't see any evidence in the substrate of being moved around either.
