sick turbo snail (snail stopped moving)?

[pspiegel]

I bought two turbo snails yesterday and they seemed to be doing fine in the tank just cruising around cleaning the walls.

The larger one (which is pretty big) seems to have stopped moving. He stopped face down in the sand for a couple hours so I moved him to be closer to the glass. He now is kind of sucking onto the glass but not moving as much as he had been the last day or so.

Is there any cause to be concerned? I am not really familiar with the behavior habits of the snail. I don't see his "trunk" sucking on the glass, it is half in the shell, just his main part is on the glass right now.

Thanks!

[Scoot]

My lone turbo hides, and rarely moves, all day long. Hit the tank with a flashlight awhile after lights out, and maybe you'll see him active.

Otherwise, some snails (and inverts in general) are pretty sensitive to acclimation time. How long did you acclimate them for? I made the mistake once, after just starting in this hobby, of quickly acclimating a big batch of hermit crabs, and most of them died.

[pspiegel]

i acclimated them for like 30 minutes just floating as my LFS said.. i did put some of my own water in their too because I had remembered with inverts that you should do that, he was really active all yesterday and today too, the other turbo snail that I got with him is still active..

i also have probably 10-12 hermit crabs wandering around too.. except today i did notice a body of one floating around, i am not quite sure what happened (whether it is a molt or whether it was really a dead one), water quality is all 0 across the board, 8.2 ph, what is a molt exactly?

EDIT: he seems to have started moving again.. what is the normal behavior of these guys like? are they active for a while then rest, then start up again?


also added a pic just for fun.. he is pretty big.. about the size of a silver dollar i would say, also, if you look on the left hand side you can see a stringy thread of sand attached to something on the snail.. what exactly is that?

[Kurt_Nelson]

My snails seem to have a "sleep" cycle. They'll cruise for a day or so, then nod off for a bit, it seems. How you describe yours are pretty much what mine have been doing for the last month or so.

Don't assume all your crabs will make it. I was a little disappointed with my "docile" scarlet reef hermits as shell envy kicked in pretty quick. Even though they had 6 empty shells to choose from, seems like a couple of them had to go picking on the occupied ones. I've lost track, but think I've maybe lost 1/4 of my hermit population due to infighting. Water parameters are pristine... I just wake up some morning and notice that there's been some shell swapping going on and crab bits scattered around the sand. Such is life!

Oh... a molt is when the crab sheds it's shell. (It's body covering - not the shell it's living in.) It'll look just like a crab, but there obviously won't be any guts - just shell. Hard to tell sometimes between a molt and a dead one, except for when you pull the shell/body out of the water. It'll be obvious then. When my cleaner shrimp molts, it freaks me out. It leaves behind a perfect replica of itself - usually sitting on a rock somewhere.

[pspiegel]

these might have been molts, because i have only once found an empty shell.. i will have to check it out next time..

side question.. how big can the turbo snails get? i am curious how gigantic these things can be..

[Sadielynn]

It may have been the acclimation time "shocked" it try acclimating with an air tube with a valve on it to give 1-2 drips a scecond for about 45-60 minutes ..

these might have been molts, because i have only once found an empty shell.. i will have to check it out next time..

side question.. how big can the turbo snails get? i am curious how gigantic these things can be..

They can get quite large(golf ball ) but usually dont in our systems. Our snails seem to be a bit more active at night but work as well through out the day too.

[EJS4]

Your lfs told you to float the bag.
Not recommend for anything salt water.
With all salt water fish and inverts you need to drip acclimatized.
You empty bag into a clean bucket or container. Then as Sadielynn stated you run a tube from your tank to the bucket and allow it to slowly drip (1-2drop/sec) water from your tank into the water in bucket. Heres where peoples opinions differ. When volume in bucket double, remove half of water in bucket and dump. Allow remaining water to double. Now the new purchase is read for your tank. You want to limit the amount of out water from getting into your tank. Fish should be quarantined so you would net them and place them in qt tank. Inverts go directly into tank. Clams, starfish and some coral should never be exposed to air so some of the water will get dumped into your tank. But snail and crabs can be netted or picked up and dropped into your tank.

[pspiegel]

thanks, thats how i usually acclimate, but the lfs told me it was ok with snails/hermits to just float the bag... oh well! they seem to be doing well now

[roka64]

Cool, that's great news!

[Scoot]

I have one turbo left, out of 6 I originally bought right after my initial cycle complete.

He's tripled in size, and is approaching that golf-ball size. Its amazing to watch him go from rock to rock without hesitation, but he only comes out at night.