Planted 50 gallon w/ snails

[AW05]

Best food for snail?
Best water quality?
Anything that I should know because my LPS didn't really know much on snails. "I'm new to planted tanks and snails"

 

[shellyx]

View attachment 290080

Best food for snail?
Best water quality?
Anything that I should know because my LPS didn't really know much on snails. "I'm new to planted tanks and snails"

Hi,
Is this just a snail tank? I adore my snails lol I keep mystery, nerites, tylos, ramshorn, trumpet, colombians and lava. All my tank's have them.
Weekly water changes are a must, these guy's like to poop lol add calcium like a piece of cuttlebone or calcium block. Feed calcium rich food for their shell's, spinach, kale, butternut squash and pumpkin! They eat most veg and fruit but some will need blanched first. Hikari crab cuisine and dennerle snail stixx has high calcium in it. They just eat anything! Algae wafers, fish food etc.
Keep the water level lower by a couple of inches incase they leave egg sacs.
PH is best between 7-8 for their shell's to stop erosion.
Hope some of this helps and would love to see Snaily pic's [emoji222]

 

[AW05]

All snails "nerite" and planted. Oh at least that's was my LPS said they were when I got them. I do weekly water changes but lately some of the snails foot thing that covers them when they go into their shell seem to be getting thin and falling off then snail dies.. I have cuttlebone in tank weekly and I feed alge wafers and sinking pellets. I also use api calcium and Kent calcium. I'm at a loss with this. Ph 7.4-7.6 ammonia 0 not sure where the others should be not much online or at least I can't find it.

 

[shellyx]

The snail's look like mystery snail's, have you checked your Gh/ Kh? What's your parameters? maybe you have high nitrates?

 

[AW05]

I'll check them tonight and get back with you

 

[shellyx]

No problem.

 

[AW05]

Where should gh/kh be?

 

[shellyx]

My Gh is 9, kh 5 my snail's do ok with that but I'm sure kh should be higher?
Gh / Kh anything between 8-12 (140-200)

 

[AW05]

Alright if it too high how do you bring it down? And same for too low how do you bring it up?

 

[shellyx]

All I know for raising it you can add calcium like crushed coral? But I just add cuttlebone. I notice you add calcium too. So maybe check your nitrate it shouldn't be above 40, nitrite should be 0 ppm.

 

[AW05]

Ph-7.8-8.0
Ammonia- .25 ppm
Nitrite- 0ppm
Nitrate- 0ppm
GH -200+ppm off the chart
KH -143.2ppm
Calcium- 120ppm

Doing a water change now ammonia spike from this morning (probably dead snail) ohhhhhh what to do what to do... [emoji17]

 

[shellyx]

How long has the tank been running? I notice you don't have a nitrate reading? If it's not cycled that would explain the losses. Keep up water changes that will help levels drop and your snails.
Sorry you lost another one.

 

[AW05]

Tank has been going for little over 12 months

 

[nirbhao]

Nerites are great, but I agree they look like mysteries. I'm also a big snail fan.

Invertebrates are actually more sensitive than a lot of fish when it comes to water quality, so definitely check your nitrites and nitrates. Also, there's a chart (I'm on my phone, sorry)- Google kh co2 ph chart. You want to make sure that the minerals in the water are accessible for the snails. If all of your carbonate hardness is in dissolved CO2, the snails can't use it.

Cuttlebones are very good, but sometimes they develop a film that flakes off and is very unsightly. I take mine out when that film forms.

I feed my snails spinach sheet seaweed, but they also eat the flakes, shrimp pellets, and even blood worms I give the fish! Oh my goodness one time I gave them a carrot cut into two pieces. It vanished within minutes, but I found it days later *inside* one of the decorations. I've also started growing my own algae, but that endeavor is approximately two weeks old.

If you put light things in the tank, they will play with them. We got some of those clear plastic blobs kept by the betta stuff, and I swear they play catch.

 

[nirbhao]

Tank has been going for little over 12 months

What was in it?

 

[AW05]

Thanks.

 

[AW05]

Plants and about 10 neon tetras for a couple months then it's only had snails in it since then.

 

[nirbhao]

Plants and about 10 neon tetras for a couple months then it's only had snails in it since then.

You've done a very nice job with the plants.

Have you moved the tetras elsewhere? How long was it between moving them and adding the snails?

When did you add the snails, and how many? They have a surprisingly heavy bioload. Adding too many too quickly could have shocked your beneficial bacteria, especially given how long it had been established with such a light load.

I just accidentally crashed the cycle in my big tank. It's really upsetting.

 

[AW05]

The tank ran with just plants for about 30 days then added the neon tetras. I moved them to my other tank and added 6 adult snails. They quickly multiplied form 6 to about 40. After moved some gave some to a friend, I believe there is around 20-25 anywhere from 1/4 inch diameter to 1 & 1/2 diameter. I have 2 filters on the tank and a sponge filter. I feed the snails shrimp pellets and alge wafers about every 3 days. "Seems lately the bigger ones are active but the smaller ones stay still half way open 90% of the time when the lights are on.

 

[nirbhao]

Okay. I misunderstood your original question. I thought this was a new set-up or at least that the snails had been very recently introduced (as in days).

My guess is that you're dealing with a shift in bioload capacity.

Snails can also starve. Both mystery snails and nerites (which don't have population explosions in fresh water) eat a *lot.* They can handle daily feedings.

Do you remove ueaten food? I like to leave my snails' food overnight.

I've seen some people write about "snail jelly," although I haven't tried it. It's usually described as a combination of fresh or blanched vegetables pureed and a calcium source mixed into gelatin. Sounds delicious, right?