Mystery Snail Shell Deterioration

[Fishfur]

There are a few species that come from softer waters. Orange Rabbit Poso, Chocolate Poso, a number of others. Poso is the lake they were found in, same general area as the Sulawesi shrimp. I think these tend to get their calcium from diet more so than the water column, and have the same general shape shell as MTS do, and as you have observed, those conical shells are much harder too, thus resist acidic damage better.

MTS shells deteriorate too, but usually only at the very tip of the cone, and it rarely seems to go far enough to bother the snails. Seems to be much the same with the much larger Poso snails. Some have colourful feet, some do not.. some have very pretty shells, some are pretty dull. Tend to be quite expensive though, and I have not had mine long enough to be able to say too much about them. I keep them in the same water as the mystery snails, and I hope they're going to be ok. Giving them their own tank with softer water would be possible later, but not now, and they all were kept in local water before I got them, and were breeding in it quite happily. So I hope they'll carry on doing so for me.

 

[Random Fishy]

There are a few species that come from softer waters. Orange Rabbit Poso, Chocolate Poso, a number of others. Poso is the lake they were found in, same general area as the Sulawesi shrimp. I think these tend to get their calcium from diet more so than the water column, and have the same general shape shell as MTS do, and as you have observed, those conical shells are much harder too, thus resist acidic damage better. MTS shells deteriorate too, but usually only at the very tip of the cone, and it rarely seems to go far enough to bother the snails. Seems to be much the same with the much larger Poso snails. Some have colourful feet, some do not.. some have very pretty shells, some are pretty dull. Tend to be quite expensive though, and I have not had mine long enough to be able to say too much about them. I keep them in the same water as the mystery snails, and I hope they're going to be ok. Giving them their own tank with softer water would be possible later, but not now, and they all were kept in local water before I got them, and were breeding in it quite happily. So I hope they'll carry on doing so for me.

How can I permanently raise my ph? I have driftwood in my tank so that might make it more difficult...

 

[Fishfur]

If your local tap water is not high enough in pH, or hard enough, you may have to use one or more of the products sold for altering pH or to remineralize RO water. Remineralizing products are often used by shrimp keepers.. Salty Shrimp is one I've heard of.

It can be tough to change tap water's characterisitics very much, but it's possible. Might be easier to start with RO and simply alter that to what you want, at least then you aren't fighting what's already in the tap water.

The wood is not likely having much effect on pH unless it's very new and still leaching a lot of colour. The colour is actually tannic acid, hence the ability to drop pH a bit but not a huge amount. Once the colour leaching is over, the wood has little to no effect on pH.