I can't believe I killed an appl snail (black mystery snail)

[Sati]

I have 1 black apple snail and 1 giant striped colombian ramshorn snail in my 29g goldfish tank. The black apple snail died two nights ago I think. He was upside down on his back. But he seemed to move in and out of the shell a little bit. I righted him and he still didn't move. I can't understand what happened to him. I wonder if I didn't feed him enough. This is a tank with a real algae problem so I assumed he was well fed. I just don't get how I killed a snail...

[ferret]

I've had several of these die over the past year.. I think they simply deplete the algae supply and end up dying.

[madasafish]

Snails do sometimes fall on their backs and chill for a while. My apple snail does that all the time--sometimes for hours at a time.

Did you throw the snail out? Are you sure it's dead?

[Sati]

Ferret, the thing is that the two snails can't keep up on the algae and I have to scrub the glass and rocks all the time in addition to their cleaning action.

And Madasa, I haven't thrown him out yet because it's my BF's tank and he was supposed to smell the little guy and make sure he's dead. I'm afraid he's going to really foul the tank and put my fish at risk, but I'm waiting til this evening. I have had a snail not move for a good 12 hours, but this has been so long. He has this weird covering over the bottom of him. I don't know much about the anatomy of snails so I don't know what half his parts are. I can take a picture if I can find some fresh batteries for the digicam, but I haven't found that box yet after the move.

[ferret]

My goldfish ate the one that was in their tank after he died :/ Sucked him out.

Mine cut algae down to nonexistant. Then die a month or two later. I'm feeding wafers now.

[dralarms]

If you were close enough I'd give you some rams horn's. I got a crap load of them. I'd say around 200

[Sati]

200, good god, lol...

Well I pulled him and hucked him off the patio. He didn't stink one bit but he definitely looked dead. He hadn't moved for like 48 hours except for when I or the goldfish moved him. I don't understand why he died. Maybe he was an old guy. Gosh, I've had one snail for 6 years now that keeps on tickin.

[Allivymar]

Ack. He may have not been dead Sati! The apple snails have a tendency to "hibernate"; kinda hole up in their shells and not come out for a while. Sometimes they even float! Best way to tell, for future reference, is to take a whiff (yuck) and tap the "foot" thats covering the opening. If its firm, the snail is alive. If its mooshy? Its dead (and then you don't have to smell it!).

From http://www.applesnail.net/ :

My snails are inactive for most of the time. Am I doing something wrong? The temperature is OK and the fish seem to be healthy.
Apple snails are rather lazy animals, they only creep around if they need to. In other words, when they are hungry or want to reproduce themselves.
If they have plenty of food, they will show almost no activity (why should they?).
In the case this inactivity sounds familiar to you and you worry about their inactivity, just reduce the amount of food for a week and see if that makes any difference (also check them at night!).
Another cause could be low temperatures. Make sure that the temperature stays between 18 and 28°C (65-82°F).
Also there might be an activity difference between species as reported by H. Auer. His Pomacea glauca is being the most active, second in rank this Pomacea flagellata and lowest activity showed by his Pomacea bridgesii.

My snail is floating around for a day now. Is he/she dead or what? What should/can I do?
Well, apple snails can be very inactive for days (see answer above this one) and if they have a lot of air in their lung, they float (sounds logical isn't it?). Floating of an apple snail doesn't indicate that there is something wrong or that he/she is dead.
To check if the snail is alive, take it out of the water and see if you can get it moving by touching the shell door. If the shell is closed completely, then you can be sure that the snail is alive because once the snail is dead, the muscles are relaxed and the shell door stays at least partly open.
Another way to check the snails is by looking at the heartbeat (only possible with young snails and snails with a thin shell). To do this, keep the snail in front of a strong light source so the light shines through it and look at the heartbeat. Have a look at the anatomy section to see where to look for.

[grimlock3000]

DOH!!!

[tabitha]

goldfish tend to pick at snails also--that might have killed him

[freshwatergal]

awww man....that means the snail that I just diposed of wasn't dead. His foot was tough when I touched it not mushy...oh man, now I feel horrible!

[Sati]

Oh ****... He wasn't dead. Crap crap crap I was more worried about my fish than the snail but now I feel bad. God, I should have just put him in a bowl of water and waited.

[Allivymar]

Don't beat yourselves over the head about it folks; we've all made mistakes (not having a full cover on my planted tank so my bamboo shrimp got out and died, putting my betta in with my gouramis while I went away on vacation and not moving him back into his home immediatelyafter I got back - the bastiges have tore up his fins, cycling a tank with angelfish are a few of mine LOL). But, now we know, and *I* know these things won't happen again. No matter how long we've been in the obsession..erm...hobby, we are all still on a learning curve

[Sati]

Oh man, I feel so stupid. If I would have thought to put him in a bowl that would have saved him. Then I would know he wasn't fouling the water in tank and I could have watched him longer and read the other replies. I did look at that apple snail site beforehand but I didn't see that Q&A. I feel really guilty. Oh man... I went outside and looked for him but it's pouring rain and the area he was thrown into is bushes with packed brown leaves and it's very hard to see a dark brown snail... Plus, it gets into the 30's at night. He probably crawled off, but I don't think he could survive the cold. ****it.