Snails acting funny

[jessibell]

My three japanese trapdoor snails have had 18 babies this week

Since the snails are supposed to help me keep the tank CLEAN, this kind of defeats the purpose LOL so I moved all the babies and one of the adults into a 1 gallon bowl.

Now, instead of being dispersed all over the tank doing their thing, they are sitting at the top of the water line in a ring and staying there, not moving. I have read this means they are not liking their water. The only difference is that the tank is smaller and is not heated - but I also read the snails prefered cooler water to warmer water. I used dechlorinated aged water in their bowl. They are not touching the pleco log at the bottom - which they formerly loved.

Is the tank too small? Too cold? Not enough oxygen in the water? I do a 50% water change every day in both the tank and the bowl. The 5 gallon fry tank has a sponge filter in it that is putting out about 1 bubble per second, and the temp in there is 81 F. The snails remaining in there (and three MORE babies they had today, WTF!) seem to be doing splendidly.

Any ideas?

 

[krap101]

You could try swapping some of the water with tankwater, see if that helps at all. If your water was really bad fme, the snails would actually try getting out of the water. I believe mts and apple snails do this (I'm not much of a snail guy)

 

[dkpate]

My mts hang out at the top of the water line every single time I feed my fish, I don't know why they do it.
Snails will be slower and eat less with colder water, since their bodies aren't metabolizing as fast.

 

[jessibell]

Maybe I'm worrying for nothing. I only got them to help keep the tank clean, but I spend more time watching the snails than the fish I must say I've grown very fond of them, they are very personable. And of course, I can't keep them ALL, eventually the little ones will have to go back to the LFS. I was told these guys don't breed much, but they've been popping out a few every day since I got them lol.