Something wrong with my snails

[Mustafa]

After the water change there really isn't much you can do. It's all just a waiting game now.

[Coluber42]

Snail update: I went out of town and left six sickos in the infirmary. When I got back on Friday, a couple were moving intermittently, a couple were belly-up but still clearly alive, and a couple looked likely dead. One more of the same kind as these six had appeared belly-up in an inaccessible spot in the tank, which made all ten snails accounted for since there were three of the other kind that had been still looking healthy before I left (not counting the baby).
I left them alone for another couple of days, and yesterday I decided to take a chance and put them all into the new tank, which has been sitting and growing algae but hadn't had any critters yet. So far they seem to be doing a little better than in the infirmary; they've all shown signs of life, incuding the two I was sure were dead, all except one has moved from the spot they landed, and three of them seem to be behaving normally or close to it.

In the original tank, I haven't seen the three presumably healthy big snails since I got back, but I did see the baby out and about on Friday. The shrimp are doing fine going about their crustaceal business. Sicko snail number seven is still alive and seems to move a little, but such a small distance that it could just be getting rolled around by passing shrimp.

So the remaining questions: I do want more snails in my tank eventually, but I'm not sure at what point it's safe to try adding them. If these guys revive and do well in the new tank, I'll just leave them in that one when I bring it to its new home and add the shrimp.
So at what point do I try again with adding more snails to the first tank? Or assuming that the 3 adults and 1 baby are still in there and healthy, just leave well enough alone and figure they'll make more by themselves eventually?

And same question with the new tank... assuming these six revive, get more snails when I get the shrimp, or leave well enough alone? And if these six don't make it? What does that tell me about the health of the tank (either one), if anything?

[Mustafa]

If you have even just one snail crawling around the tank and going about its business normally, that means that the tank is fine. The other snails that aren't doing so well may just be more "damaged" and may need to recover longer, or are *too* damaged to recover and will most likely die even though your tank is probably fine (given that the healthy snails are doing just fine).

If you should get more snails or not then just depends on how fast you want to see a larger snail population. Eventually the snails you have will produce lots of snails, but if you want that to happen even faster than you can get more snails.

[ShrimpLady]

Can I add 1 fresh water snail to my supershrimp tank? My tank is a half gallon and has 6 shrimp. Also- I want to add 20 more super shrimp, is this bad idea?

[JennyPenny]

What kind of snail is it? Not all fresh water snails can survive in brackish water.
You could add 20 shrimp to a half gallon tank. Given that they will breed and it's a relatively small tank, I would probably just add 10 and wait.

[Bob_99]

Sounds like you're messing with your water too much. I have a 20 gal that I set up about 20 months ago and added 10 shrimp about 18 months ago. I do no water changes. I now have 50-60 adult and juvie shrimp and over 30 shrimp larvae. My Nerite snails lay tons of eggs but they never hatch. I also have Ramshorn snails that are reproducing. Hope your snails get better.

[Coluber42]

One more update: The snails that got moved to the new, as-yet-shrimpless tank have all pretty much revived, including the one I thought for sure was a goner. In the original tank, the three darker snails are doing well and I'm occasionally able to find the baby snail, which has grown noticeably. The one remaining stripey* snail doesn't act healthy yet, but isn't dead yet either, so I'm still hoping that it will turn around without moving into the second tank.
Hopefully in the near future I'll actually be caught up on work enough to be able to order the shrimp for the new tank and deliver it to my better half's office.

*the snails are the brackish water ones from Mustafa. There was a mix of two species, and they are reasonably easily distinguishable within the batch, but I don't know which is which so I just call them "brown" and "stripey", even though the stripey ones are also basically brown and the brown ones are maybe very faintly striped.

[Mustafa]

Thanks for the update! Glad to hear they're doing well finally!

[Mustafa]

I also have Ramshorn snails that are reproducing.

Hey Bob,

I'm pretty sure you mean Trumpet snails, right? Ramshorns wouldn't survive in Supershrimp tanks.

[Bob_99]

Yup, you're right.