Losing fish left and right

[becrac16]

Hm. I just tested my water again and got two completely different answers. I have one kind of all-in-one test strip that still says my nitrates are at 160, but the other only nitrate test says that its closer to 10. What the heck??

But I have noticed within the past couple of days that the abundance of snails in my tank are slowly but surely dying off. This is a good sign though, right? I mean, my understanding of what makes nitrates spike is 1. cycling (which I don't think was the case) and 2. dead plant matter and 3. overfeeding. The overfeeding and dead plant matter was I think what made the snail population thrive, and so now that those are pretty much gone they're dying off. I feel bad, but at the same time I think it's a good sign. Right?

[ChizerBunoi]

Go ahead and add more plants. We typically dose nitrate into the tank as a fertilizer. They will help eliminate the nitrates and will up take them. Just remember to remove any rotting leaves so that they don't pollute your tank.

I wouldn't trust the results of the test strip. The chemical tests are more accurate as long as you followed the instructions properly and waited the proper time before checking the color. You might want to do the test again and check visibly against sunlight through a window. Different light bulbs will emit different colors and make the color in the test tube appear slightly different. This in term makes you interpret a different reading.

I don't think that the snails should be dying off in a massive volume like that as they typically eat detritus from the substrate. Are these pond snails or Malaysian trumpet snails? If you have been dosing melafix then it should be safe for them as long as you have been following the instructions and not overdosing. If you added another medication then that might not be safe for them.

[becrac16]

They're pond snails, I must have picked up some hitch hikers from some plants because about a month ago there was a huge influx of baby snails. They were everywhere. Since then, there has been another batch of baby snails. At one point they were def all over the bottom of the tank. Now, they're moving to the sides of the tank and there definitely aren't as many small ones on the bottom. I really don't mind them going.