Snails dead in thriving reef???

[markus0909]

My snails are all dead. My param's are all good. Coral, inverts, live rock, and fish are all doing great. Empty snail shells everywhere. I had many snails and now can't even find a live one at night with a flashlight.
Any ideas of what could be making my reef....."snail unfriendly"?

 

[sickboy]

I have the same problem. I recently rearranged my tank and lifted my "show piece" rock and there was a snail cemetery behind it, I don't know why they all died.

 

[jtt]

have a lot of hermits? my hermits are murdering little buggers, theyve killed some of the snails in order to take their shells.

 

[westwind77]

Same here! I can not figure out what is happening! Since using DI water I hardly get growth on my glass so I thought that might have been the reason for the 1st set passing. I ordered a 2nd set and the same thing is happening, even though I am making sure to leave the growth on the glass when I get it so they can feed, which I think is helping a little, but not a lot. I know hermits are not causing all the issues because i will see snails, in their shell, upside down on the sand dying. I am wondering if my tank is just too clean for them.

 

[ppanthrah75]

if they fall off the glass which mine do sometimes,they willdie if u cant turn them over when they fall they land on there shell leaving the foot exposed and they cant right themselves, i tend to c this in my tank every couple days im turning them over

 

[gmann1139]

What kind of snails were they? Can you take a photo of the shells?

 

[makoshrk2]

Hermit crabs will eat them. I can't have any snails in my tank. It's one or the other but not both. They will even eat those big mexican turbo snails, and even fish that are too slow to get away

 

[bang guy]

Snails don't normally just "fall off" the glass. The obvious possibilities are Copper build up from tap water (this can take years to build up though), Starvation, low salinity, improper temperature, or predation.

 

[canareef]

I had a purple gorilla crab I'm not sure the actual name. He would eat 3-5 snails every week I had no clue he was there for over 2 months untill my brother seen him one day.

 

[markus0909]

I also have many hermits. Maybe they are what's killing mine. I also have to flip them over, but I have always had to do that. I am use to loosing some that way but not this many. I do have to say, I think this is the largest size hermits I have had. Usually all really small, but have a good quantity that are the size of a quarter or so. Hermits are thriving and snails dead......is that 2+2=4??? or not quite that simple?

 

[reefaholic33]

I learned the hard way with this that temp. stability is very important. The actualy temp. can be anywhere in the normal range but if it drops or raises quickly snails will drop like crazy.