Snail water buffer

[zacusmaximus]

I'm curious what you all use or would use to supply more calcium in snail tanks. My water is very soft and I'm fairly certain it is contributing to the deterioration of my snails' shells over time. Not a real problem, as of yet, but I'd like to begin breeding snails for some friends (pond, MTS, and possibly mystery/apple). I have pretty much everything I can think of at my disposal, including crushed coral, calcium carbonate, chloride, sulfate, and nitrate. Snail-keeping hadn't really been an objective of mine until now so I'm just curious what you pro snail-keepers out there would recommend. Thanks!

 

[majolo]

I think most people recommend cuttlebone, found in the bird section of pet stores.

 

[2cvbloke]

I think most people recommend cuttlebone, found in the bird section of pet stores.

This could be useful to me too!!! How do you give it to them? Crush a little bit up into a powder or pop a chunk in and let them graze?

 

[majolo]

I just broke off a chunk and put it in the tank, but I'm not sure if that's the right way. It's very buoyant, but mine did get waterlogged and sink after like a month. Actually my water is pretty hard, so I probably didn't need it. This is in my shrimp & snail tank, by the way.

 

[JeffreyL]

I have a similar issue with very soft water. It has a gH of 1 out of the tap. I was reluctant to mess with it, but my snails were growing transparent, brittle shells. Plus some fish were obviously not doing well.

So I add a homemade gH booster to all my tanks. It consists of a 4:1 mix of calciun chloride (CaCl2) and magnesium sulfate (MgSO4). I just dose it at water changes, like Prime. Got the idea from Tom Barr's site for raising gH. Works great and very easy to maintain a gH of 6. Still soft, but much more fish friendly and the snails no longer have transparent shells. Oh, and they are breeding like crazy. At least in the tanks I might occasionally over feed. A bit. lol

If you are not sure where to get the chemicals ....... MgSO4 is just epsom salts from the drugstore and the CaCl2 I got from Greg Watson, the fert man.

Good luck with the little guys!!!!

 

[zacusmaximus]

I have a ton of Tom Barr's GH booster mix, just never use it. I think I'll start with it and see how it goes. I want some shrimp/snail factories like I see other AA members posting about!

 

[JeffreyL]

I was going to get some of Barr's gH Booster, but I already needed to order ferts from Greg Watson, and had this cool new digital scale to play with, so ........ lol

 

[Bubble_B0y]

I use coral sand in my tanks
Coral sand increases the hardness.

 

[plecoperson]

I put crushed coral in a media bag in the HOB filter; next time I set up a snail tank I'll use coral sand, though!