Dumb Snails

[Drewbie]

I found two dead snails at the back of my tank who obviously climbed out and died

How common is this and is there anyway to stop it?

 

[thominil]

Put something over your tank like egg crate or even screen would work.

 

[thincat]

Some spieces of snails tend to climb out of the water mostly at night. These tend to commit carpet suicide. Nerites come to mind. There are two or three variaties and the large one climbs out at night.

 

[thominil]

If you have hermits I'd keep the shells.

 

[Mystery]

If you don't want to cover the entire tank a fair small inward pointing 'lip' at 90 degress is enough to stop most of them.

 

[melosu58]

They make a netting you can put over the top of your tank. I think innovator has it in his sig.

 

[roka64]

Hmmm, interesting, I have nerites and have never seen them climb out, but some critters are just determined to do what they want.
Personally, I'd rather the snails climb out than the fish jump out!

 

[thincat]

Well, in the beginnig it was very frustrating to have all your "larger" snails climbing out and dieing on the floor. until I did a little research and found out about the different subspieces of Nirite snails. My guess is that the one's that you buy are not the ones that climb out.

 

[roka64]

Ahhh, good point!

 

[CementShoes]

Well, in the beginnig it was very frustrating to have all your "larger" snails climbing out and dieing on the floor. until I did a little research and found out about the different subspieces of Nirite snails. My guess is that the one's that you buy are not the ones that climb out.

I caught your post about what a stickler you are for facts and spelling, so I would point out that I believe you are talking about Nerite and not Nirite snails correct?

Anyway I've never heard of a specific sub-species with a predisposition for climbing out of an aquarium. Could you post a link please? I guess mine must be one of the several other sub-species not genetically mutated to climb out of the aquarium also.

 

[thincat]

You are correct. "Nerite", the reason I pointed out the other spelling was the fact that it was a totally different animal and if google could have lead to a really bad outcome.
The link about the snails was posted in "reefhawaii.com" and I will try to locate it again.

 

[thincat]

cementshoes here is one of the links: In Hawaii the nerite snails are know as "pipipi's"
http://www.fukubonsai.com/M-L1n.html