Mystery Snails

[Dr. Geoff]

Hey guys,

Had a mystery snail die about 3 mos ago, and the other just died a few days ago. Fish are fine, and water params are fine. I have an Opaline gourami, sometimes I would see him nipping at the snail. Could this be the reason? Should I replace the snails? What type? Any recommendations for other inverts?

29gal
Plastic plants and
3 live plants (bacopa, Anubis, and ludwiga)
Gourami
Zebra hybrid syn cat
3 guppies
2 gouramis
7 rasboras
5 danios

Let me know.

 

[hcourts]

Do you use salt in your aquarium? I know it's not good for them and adding too much can hurt them. I add it at one water change a month in my 20g and mine are fine but I add a lower recommended amount. Plus I put cuttlebone in my tanks. I am sorry for your loss

 

[Dr. Geoff]

I do put salt... I never thought about that. I add about 1tsp/3gal. Not a ton, but this did occur day after a water change. Think I should bail on the salt?

 

[siva]

Salt has no place in a freshwater aquarium unless you are medicating the fish. I would discontinue use of the salt all together. I'm not sure what you've heard, but the fact is freshwater fish do not benefit from regular dosing of aquarium salt.

It's possible a gourami killed the snail, but when I've had large snails like that killed by fish it's been obvious, with snail body ripped out of the shell. If your snails are dying in their shells, I doubt it's due to the fish. What's your pH? I haven't had much luck keeping them alive at a lower pH, but if you're above 7.0 that's not the problem. Adding a chunk of cuttlebone in your substrate might be helpful, it is a good idea for all invert tanks. Leave a little sticking out and the snails may feed on it a bit. The prolonged salt exposure may also have something to do with it. I've had mystery snails make it through salt treatments fine, but never kept them w/ salt long term.

 

[Dr. Geoff]

I had a bout of ick is the 2nd month of owning my aquarium, and lost a Molly of mine. I did the salt and heat treatment, after that I have just always been adding a small amount of salt (1tsp/3G) as a preventative measure.(there is a lot of Internet literature for and against this.). But i have had healthy tank for a while, so I will start doing some water changes and get rid of the salt. Pick up a few more snails perhaps and see how they fair. Do you think shrimp would be okay with my setup? How many would I need? Could I get two snails an two shrimp? Or is my bioload already maxed out? Just wanna get some invest in there, I really enjoyed the snails.

 

[siva]

Shrimp have a very small bio-load. You could have a nice sized colony in there w/o having to worry about overstocking. I'm not sure how cats such as yours do with shrimp. Some gourami will eat shrimp but I've had pretty good luck with the dwarf variety. If you have larger gouramis shrimp may not work out so well. You might want to get some tester ghost shrimp for real cheap, and if they fare well, go for something more colorful like the RCS. You could easily start with 20 of those. You are usually better off ordering something like a 20 pack online vs. paying per shrimp at the lfs. Shops often charge as much as $4 for them, which is absurd, and you'll pay significantly less than that ordering from another hobbyist. There are tons of dwarf shrimp to choose from, but the RCS are the most affordable. You could also look at BPS, yellow, rili, orange/pumpkin, green babaulti, CRS/CBS, and blueberry. The larger snails like the apples aka mystery do have a large bioload, but you'll be fine to add 2-3 of those along with your shrimp.

Other reco's for cool inverts could be tylomelania aka rabbit snails, and dwarf crays like CPO's (if you've determined the fish don't bother shrimp). Some little pink, red, and/or blue ramshorn snails are always nice as well.

 

[siva]

Oh you said opaline gourami..sorry I missed that. I haven't kept one, but I doubt it will work with shrimp. Especially with the snail nipping behavior.