Dead snails

[princefro]

Got a quick question that hopefully someone could help me out with. I recently just cycled my tank sucessfully with the shrimp and it worked great. I had a damsel survive the whole thing. I recenltly returned from vacation to my cycled tank and decided to add a small amount of inverts to the tank. 4 turbos and 7 mud snails to my 55 gal tank. I acclimated them over a few hours and then placed them in the tank. These guys moved around for a little while and havent moved since. The turbos are all closed up and the mud snails havent moved, but the were very lively in the bag from the LFS. Please Help. There is brown algae forming on the glass of the tank so it looks like there should be enough food.
ammonia 0.0
nitrate 0.0
nitrite 0.0
sal 28.5
SG 1.021
temp 78F
This happened last time but I thought it was because I was running a UV steralizer and the water was too clean.
Thanks for anyone that can help!!

 

[joe____17]

You're specific gravity is too low should be 1.025 at least. Brown algae? You mean cyanobacteria? They cant eat that alone.

 

[veni vidi vici]

The brown algae is most likely diatoms,very common in new tank and will go away in time.How did you acclimate?
Your SG is on the low side but I doubt that is your issue.Natural sea water is typically 1.0264 or 35 ppt.
BTW Welcome to SWF.com

 

[reeftanker84]

yes they need your SG to be at least .024 but .025 to .027 is the best,and make sure your temp isnt to cold or to hot,mine runs at 81 to 82 deg

 

[princefro]

This site is awseome, thanks for the quick replies everyone. Umm I acclimated by placing the bag in the fishtank and added about 3 oz of water every 20 or 30 minutes over a few hours. As for the SG, I guess that can be raised by adding more salt?? Im new at this whole thing and was trying to get my tank established so i can have something nice to look at like all of you. Thanks again for the replies

 

[joe____17]

To raise sg you have to pour water that has salt mixed in already use a bucket with a powerhead running in it for a bit, then measure the salinity to the point you want it to be.Then pour it in.

 

[princefro]

Thanks Joe and everyone who responded. I ran to the LFS to pick up some salt, i have been slowly upping the SG of the tank. Im up to 35ppt and 1.026SG. I placed the snails in a position where i could observe them better, some of their "feet" are starting to slightly emerge from thier shells(turbos) as for the mud snails, not sure if they are going to make it. We will see. Are snails pretty hardy, as in what is the odds they are going to survive?? Im also raising the temp of the tank to about 80F. I guess the inverts are much more sensitive to salinity levels in a tank, my damsel looks very good and not affected by the salinity of the tank.

 

[joe____17]

Snails overall can be hardy, i have nassarius snails that are doing pretty well, they're all over the place. Turbos i think are a colder water species of snails. Someone correct me if im wonr so i think 80 degrees will be too warm for them.Yeah inverts are sensitive to low and really high salinity, 1.025 up to 1.028 is where you want to keep it. Between those.

 

[princefro]

well, I think they are actually dead. Im going to let them sit tonight in the tank, if they dont show some sort of movement I will have to try again. That initial shock might have done them in. Would calcium and Kh levels play a factor?? Should I get a test kit to check for these levels??

 

[joe____17]

It would help to get test that check everything. Thats the only way to be 100% sure. Calcium should be around 400 i think. Yeah with snails they need to acclimate slowly and it would be best to avoid letting them get bubbles trapped on them because that causes problems too. You can eventually tell they are dead because they ill shed the "door" to the bottom of their shell.

 

[harris28]

To tell if they are dead simply take one out and smell it. If it smells rancid, then its dead and should be removed. Because if nothing is there to clean it up, then you amonia could go up. And to clarify, I've had snails in water as low as 1.019 and they were fine.

 

[joe____17]

They were fine but the higher sg is ideal .