Snails

[mmaglione]

I just purchased a variety of cleanup crew today, i brought home 3 nassarious snails , 2 sand sifting star fish and 10 astrea snails and put them in my 55 gallon tank. Everything immeditely responding once i put them in the tank EXCEPT my astrea snails. Non of them have moved although i have seen them move in the tanks at the store.I have them in the sand, on my live rock etc. Literally out of 10 not one seems to be doing anything, just a little worried that they have died. They dont seem to be helping remove diatoms while stationary lol! Ideas?

 

[melosu58]

They usually need more acclimation time. How did you acclimate them? Also what are your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates readings?

 

[mmaglione]

My Amonia levels, nitrate, nitrite, etc. is all perfect. The salinity is as well. I put them into the water withthe bag they were in at the pet store for a good hour to aclimate to the temperature. then put them in. It seems a few lived but they barely have any activity! Last night to today they only moved probably a half inch! Are they that inactive of a snail? At this rate they will never clean my tank lol , good thing i got nassarius and sand sifting stars!

 

[fshfrk58]

How old is your tank? The reason I ask is because if it's new, your sand sifters might not do as good. They really need an established tank to survive and two might be excessive for a 55 gallon tank. Some people say small tanks are okay for them but they really need bigger tanks.Those are my thoughts. We really need to know exact perameters on your levels in order to help

 

[cmor1701d]

Snails need a LONG acclimation period to the Salinity of your tank. Just doing a temperature acclimation generally does not work for snails (or anything for that matter).
After a 10 -15 bag float to temp acclimate you need to open the bag and start adding some tank water ... SLOWLY, so that the new livestock can adjust to your tanks water chemistry.

On Friday I got some new fish, shrimp, snails and blue linkia star fish. The fish were drip acclimated for an hour before the went into the QT tank. The snails and shrimp were drip acclimated for two hours before going into the display tank, and the star fish was drip acclimated for 4 hours before going into the display tank.

 

[thincat]

Perfect water.....That's nice to know. My perfect water is as follows:
Ammonia 3.002, nitrites 8.072, SG....1.042 and best of all is the temp. That I like to bath in 101.023. These are all perfect...but not for a tropical reef tank. Point in fact...what is perfect for one situation is not always for another. That is the reason we ask for #'s. Please don't take this wrong, but to help you we need #'s to know what really is normal.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

you crack me up TC. What lifeform's perfect water has 3.002 ppm ammonia in it anyways? I like my bath water at 102.

 

[mfdrookie516]

you crack me up TC. What lifeform's perfect water has 3.002 ppm ammonia in it anyways? \

nitrifying bacteria would prefer that, i guess ?

 

[skae310]

When I got my astrea I didn't acclimate long enough either and mine only moved about an inch for the first two days. They adjusted over about a week and started moving normal. Just my experience.

 

[thincat]

Yes, give them some time and next time acclimate them slowly to your water conditions. You may have "perfect" water but it might be toally different then the water they came from..

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I'm glad this thread went up, because I was going to ask about acclimating a CUC myself. I have a large order coming in from reefcleaners.org for 2 customers. Are there any special acclimation procedures for any of the following:

Sm/Med/Lg Nerite
Nassarius
Dwarf Cerith
Hermits (White claw, left handed, blue leg, thin leg)
Fuzzy Chiton

The Chitons I am going to take extra care to acclimate because they are listed as delicate shippers.

Also with the drip acclimation, I'm not sure how much water they will come in, so I'm thinking that I'm going to use a 5g bucket, and drip enough to fill the bucket 1/2 way, then dump half of that, fill 3/4 of the way, and then put them in the tank and dispose of the acclimation water. So I'll need about 10g of new water to replace the acclimation water. I figure this will take about an hour or so.

I read that this is the way to do it to keep any of the shipping water out of your system. Am I on the right track? This is the procedure I read about for acclimating new fish, but I'm guessing it wouldn't hurt and probably is right for CUC, corals, and anything else living for that matter...

 

[CaptainAhab]

Never acclimated a snail or hermit in my life. Stars, urchins, etc yes.. Pretty sure reefcleaners recommends the same thing.

http://reefcleaners.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=31

 

[bavass]

i ordered from www.reefcleaners.org and followed there acclimation process on macro algae and snails never had a problem