Making my community more welcoming to inverts?

[trennamw]

I have an 8 month old community tank, 29 gallon, with lots of plants. I've had pond snails, MTS, mystery snails, and ghost shrimp.

The former two do fine of course, but I've had trouble keeping the latter two alive.

I'm interested in adding Amano shrimp, RCS, and another mystery snail that makes it to a good size, but first I'd like to better understand their needs.

My water is quite soft (0.1 degrees KH and GH). I supplement with cichlid buffer at a lower dose than if I kept cichlids, and with Seachem Equilibrium. There's a cuttlefish bone piece in too. GH and KH are now 4ish. Usually it's 0 ammo nitrite, with nitrates 15-20.

I use some leaf zone, Osmocote root tabs, and keep contemplating a small dose of excel (tried it once, didn't go well).


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[ScotJudd]

As a matter of interest, what went wrong with the Excel? I use it all the time and the only problem is that some soft fleshy plants melt. Crypts, ferns and moss love it. RCS/MTS and fish are doing well and unwanted algae is now not present.


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[Fishfur]

If you are buying large mystery snails it's well to be aware that their average life span is only about 3 years or so. So the really big ones might not live all that long after you get them. They'll last longer if you get them at about an inch in size, which is big enough to be breeding age. It would likely be beneficial if you buffered the water a bit more, raised the GH a couple more degrees.

Try adding a vacation fish feeder block to the tank. Most snails go nuts for them, especially the ones for Plecos. But any type will be eaten. You can even make your own, with Plaster of Paris and fish food. Ice cube tray makes a good mould.. let them set and then remove them to cure fully. The commercial ones are Plaster of Paris too, it's pure calcium sulfate.

Ghost shrimp also do not have an especially long life, particularly females who are constantly berried. It's pretty impossible to stop them breeding, unless there are no males at all. A year is about average, you might get 18 months or so, though it depends how old they are when you get them. The ones we see here are usually breeding age, females nearly always berried, so they have to be 3-4 months old, give or take. That's based on the ones I raised myself from larvae and when they started breeding. So you may not be doing anything wrong.. not everything has a long life span. RCS don't live much past 18 months either.. but usually give you so many babies it really doesn't matter so much that the adults do pass on periodically.

Just fyi, I dose API carbon booster, which is slightly more concentrated than Excel is and so far, no issues with shrimp or snails. Plants are doing fairly well, fish are fine, inverts doing ok. My snails bred like maniacs this summer, but have now pretty much quit. This is normal, spring and summer are the primary breeding seasons for them. Some of the large ones may survive to breed again next spring but if they don't, well, they produced a lot of kids this year.

 

[jrc0528]

What kind and how much lighting do you have?

 

[trennamw]

I have low to medium light. Marineland led kit and a very bright room, tank is near a window. Running a long photoperiod I keep cabomba growing, ozelot sword growing slowly, and almost no algae.

The mystery snails have been very small ones and last a few months. Last pair I bought, one grew fast the other didn't grow and died. Maybe it was a sick snail. The surviving one is doing well and growing very very fast.

Ghost shrimp last a few months at most. Except one I've had for about 6 months, I've added about 15 since April. I see Danios nipping unsuccessfully at already dead shrimp, none of my fish are big enough to eat the adults.

I have some crushed coral and a cuttlefish bone in the tank. I can certainly bring the GH up a touch with the Equilibrium.


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[trennamw]

And it was the crypts that melted using the co2 booster.


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[Fishfur]

My lighting over the snail's tank is a pair of 13 W spiral daylight bulbs.. 6500 K. Both bulbs in one 10 inch round reflector, thanks to an adaptor. The lamp sits a few inches above the tank top & the water level is about 1.5 inch below the tank top. There's a thick layer of frogbit over the surface of the tank, as the frog who lives in there too is an ambush predator. Her crickets need plants to run around on while the frog needs the cover to ambush from and feel safe. This tank would be nothing much other than an algae farm, if there weren't a thick layer of floaters on the water.

Thanks to the frogbit, little else grows in there. Some java fern, and some pennywort which I had to remove, because it was just covered in algae. It was in there before the frogbit got so thick. The pennywort's now in a tank where some Otos will enjoy cleaning it off. There's one water poppy, which has floating leaves that are bigger than frogbit and it's doing ok so far as I can see.

The little snails, especially the baby ones, spend most of their time on the underside of the floaters. I think it's just easier for them to grab air and feed on the underside of the leaves, compared to the tank bottom. Once they get some size on them, they start foraging all over. I have one clutch of eggs yet to hatch and that will likely be the last 'til next spring.

But the lights are on 12 hours a day because of the frog, who needs a balanced day/night cycle, so maybe I'll get a clutch or two . My biggest snails are golf ball size now. The oldest of this years hatchlings are about 6 months, the size of a quarter or more. I'll keep the best of them, and see about selling the rest. There are a lot of very young ones, I had some ten clutches hatch close together. No idea how many survived.

I've noticed over the past couple of weeks that most of my larger snails appear to be estivating, or if not actually estivating, they're certainly not moving around much. Most are semi buried under a rock, and a couple just buried themselves in the substrate, so all I could see was a bit of the top shell. Just a few of the ones that are 1/4 to 3/8" in diameter are still moving around and feeding well.

When I put food in, I'm not seeing the thundering horde descend upon it as they did before, so I've cut back drastically on food. The cories who share the tank are eating the majority of what goes in there now. Even the other snail species who share this tank are not nearly as active now as they were, so even with the lighting, it seems they know winter has come.

 

[ScotJudd]

That's really strange that the crypts melted. Mine are thriving and throwing out runners on Excel. They were really well established before I started Excel and wondered if yours might have been fairly new without an extensive root system.
It interests me that one product is a godsend for one fish keeper but the devils own work for another. We can only comment on our own experiences which is why this forum is so good.


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[trennamw]

That's interesting stuff Fishfur. My son wants, off and on, his own small tank with a frog. It's on the list.

The co2 melting issue may have had to do with not having enough light for the plants to use all the co2.


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[Fishfur]

The little aquatic frogs can be fun to observe. Mine ignores all fish and snails and shrimp too, when they were in there. She only pays attention to disturbances at the surface that might be a meal. So very suited for smaller covered tanks with small fish, if you want to try that.

Mine is not a dwarf or clawed frog though. It's a Floating frog, Asian species, Occidogyza. lima. They must have dense floating cover and some places on the bottom to hide near. I say near, because I think they mostly depend on their camouflage colouration. They'll just sit motionless beside a piece of rock or wood 'til they have to come up for air. It can be hard to find her in there sometimes, even though she's about 3 inches long including the long back legs. Body is about 1.5 inches, shaped like a blunt triangle.

They spend a vast amount of time just floating. Have some interesting sounds they make, though now I have just one, she's quiet. One call sounded much like a duck quack, others like squeaky sneakers. I think a lot of the calls are mating related ,since we lost the male, she doesn't say much. I'm trying to find her a new boyfriend.

But they're attractive little things, no two have the same pattern on them, and the underside looks almost sequinned, with bright white tubercles shining when the light catches them. Eyes like an alligator right on top of the head, so they're all that show above water.

I've had her two years now and she's doing fine, near as I can tell. I just wish she ate something other than crickets. I try to find her other insects whenever I can but it's not always easy to manage that, especially in winter. If they're much smaller than a half size cricket she ignores them. The snails and cories appear to be happy enough and don't even seem to notice froggie is there.

 

[trennamw]

Sounds neat!

He really wants a turtle ... Maybe at his dad's house

This mystery snail I was worried about is now doing great. Maybe the one that died was poor stock. But I also had a few weeks of nitrates above 40.

I'm looking hard at black crystal shrimp in their own aquarium, or adding 6 of the pumpkin to my community tank. For now I got another 8 ghost shrimp, we will see how that goes.


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[Fishfur]

just curious, how large was snail you lost ?

 

[trennamw]

I bought a yellow and brown at nickel sized. The brown grew, the yellow didn't. I think it died after about a month in tank.


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[Fishfur]

As I said, just curious. Sometimes you'll find quite large snails for sale, which look great, but may actually be near the end of their life span, which is only about 3 years or so. They don't usually just up and die, but any critter can have some problem that isn't obvious to us, that does them in.

I've had so many snails over the years.. I don't know how long the oldest one lived for, but if I get a year, that's all right. Nickel sized snails are already about six months old, or more. They tend to grow in cycles, or spurts, faster in spring/summer, slower or not much at all in fall/winter.. and if they are breeding a lot, they don't live as long as when they don't. I think females are a bit more likely to die earlier, given the strain of egg bearing.

I prefer to buy them at about nickel size, when they are old enough to begin breeding, but if I find a large one that has a nice colour I'll risk it, hoping to get some eggs before it passes on.

 

[trennamw]

I'm wondering if there's a nitrate sensitivity?

I've had several now just up and die. I keep buying 2 at a time, one brown one yellow (my son is insistent). The former pair in my 29 died at about the same time, after a filter issue.

Before that I had them in a 1 gallon, when I didn't know anything about anything. I know why those died!


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