Dead Snails

[Juster]

Hey all,

A couple weeks a go I bought 3 ramhorn snail for my 10 gal tank. Today I think I found the third empty shell. I am not sure why they all died. My tank has a blue ram, SAE, 2 danios and 2 ghost shrimp. Could the shrimp have so how eaten the snails? I don't think anything else would have. I would like to get more snails but not if they are going to get eaten.

Thanks,

Juster

 

[benji-star]

sorry about your snail some times you dont have good luck from lfs you might have to find a different source

 

[Menagerie]

The shrimp and even the ram may have had a hand in the snail deaths. How are the water parameters?

 

[Lance M.]

Ghost shrimp wouldn't kill the snails, they'd just eat them after they had died. As far as I've seen ghost shrimp won't even try to harm the snails and even if they had tried to the snails would of just closed up their shells. My ghost shrimp and snails live in peace (they have a treaty 8O ).

Snails have a hard time living in soft water (they need the calcium for their shells)or acidic water. How big where the snails and did you feed them?

 

[Juster]

Water parameters are all normal. No ammonia or nitrite. Water is just a bit over 7.4 ph. Snails were pretty small. I did not feed them anything directly. They were eating algae off my plants, wood and glass.

I have seen the shrimp harassing the snails but didn't think they could eat them.

 

[Lance M.]

What's your GH and KH ?

 

[Veneer]

The shrimp could potentially (unlikely) have eaten your snails if they were actually Macrobrachium sp. (which sometimes enter shipments of "ghost shrimp").

See http://www.aquamaniacs.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15463 for images and discussion of a snail-eating shrimp.

I would personally implicate environmental factors in your setup before leaping to conclusions about your shrimp, but they should remain suspect, especially considering that you had observed them harrassing your snails.

Some questions:

How large are your "ghost shrimp"? Can you provide images? Similarly, what size where your rams? Where did you obtain them from?

 

[Lance M.]

The shrimp could potentially (unlikely) have eaten your snails if they were actually Macrobrachium sp. (which sometimes enter shipments of "ghost shrimp").

Ya, but if the shrimp you have were real ghost shrimp then the snails wouldn't of been killed by the shrimp. Pictures of the shrimp would be good help.