Upside Down Snails

[ed d]

I have a 55G fowlr tank. Over the past few days, I started noticing several of my snails were upside down. I thought they may have fallen and landed upside down, but it is happening very frequenly now. I have one turbo snail (never seen upside down until recently) and seveal trocus and astrea snails. I have stared flipping the turbo snail aver a couple of time a day. I am concered he will die if I leave him. So far none of the astela snails have gone upside down. I have a kole tang, a zebra moray and seveal damsel in the tank. I am wondering if the kole tang might be flipping the snail over. The tang has been in the tank for about a mont now. He seem to be munching on everything now. The eel has be with the sanil for about a year.
Does anyone have any ideas on why my snails are flipping over?

 

[adrian]

Have you tested the water quality?

 

[y2says]

I know when my snails started to flip up-side down, they all died soon after. Check your water quality, especially your copper level.

 

[kris walker]

In addition to copper, I think I heard that snails can't handle pH's less than about 8.0, and so if your alk is low enough, your pH might drop down below 8 at night. Just a thought in case your upside down snails start to die.
sam

 

[ed d]

Thanks for the input.
I checked my water quality. It is OK. A little high on nitrates
Ammonia <.25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 40
PH 8.2
Salinity 1.021
Temp 78F
I lost about 4 of 15 snails. I guess when snails go upside down more than once, It is a good chance they are dying. I will wait a couple of weeks before adding any more.

 

[adrian]

I doubt it has naything to do with nitrates, Id be more worried about getting detectable amounts of ammonia

 

[clownman]

What kind of Damsel do you have? I have seen a weired behavior when a damsel will pickup hermit crab up and drop. Just think that Tarbo is too big, but just never know

 

[keitho]

some alkalinity readings would be nice. also, how old is your tank? why do you think you're still detecting ammonia in your tank? the ammonia could definitely be the culprit.

 

[ed d]

The tank is about a year old. The snails that have died were about 10 months old.
I am using the Quick Dip test strips for ammonia. It is hard to tell 0 form 0.25, so I write down the worse.
I do not test for alkalinity? Should I be? What affects it.
I am not so worried about the damsel flipping the snail, I think the Kole tank would be more the culprit.

 

[adrian]

Alkalinity is very important, you should be testing fro it. In short its the systems ability to buffer swings in the pH. HTH

 

[big dave]

You have inverts with a Zebra Moray?!?! ALl they natually eat is inverts including snails and clams! Keep an eye on him!

 

[ed d]

The zebra eel has not messed with any of the snails over the last 10 months. When the eel is well fed, it will not mess with the inverts that I have. I currently have the following invertibrates with the eel:
Blue hermit crabs - I only loose a couple a month. Hard to say if it is the other blues taking a shell (watched that once) or the eel
Turbo, trocus and astrea snails - No problem here,
Serphant star - 6 months and getting bigger. Lost a brittle star in less than a week
Cleaner schrimp - 9 months, and it cleans the eels mouth.
Scarlet hermits - I gave up on these, they last a few months, and then goodbye.
Emeral crab, OOPS, not again, I wanted to get rid of some bubble algea
Coral banded shrimp - Lasted 6 months, then I let the eel get hungy, another gone'er.
Adrian,
I test for PH, it has always been between 8.0 and 8.4, Sometimes hard to distinguish. Is constant PH an indicator for acceptable alkalinity??

 

[adrian]

Yes, pH is a good indicator of alk, but I would still test for it, if your pH swings that much your alk may be low. IMO its one of hte most important tests to run once you have cycled the tank. Along with Ca, alk is the only thing I test for with any regularity. HTH

 

[adrian]

Salifert

 

[dhe420]

I have noticed that my inverts like higher salinity >1.023 . Try raising it some and see what happens.