my snail died

[shrimpy4]

I think one of mine may have croaked too. It burrowed itself down into the rocks right up against the side of the bowl (in a whole pile of shrimp waste) and hasn't emerged from its shell in days. I've noticed they retract into their shells for periods of time, but I've never seen one do it for this long. If it is dead the shrimp can't get to it where it is, I may try nudging it soon.

[AndyH]

It seems like it'd do more harm than good if you were to stick your hand in the tank and move everything around just to get one (possibly) dead snail out of there.

[KenCotigirl]

I use a turkey baster to suck up debris and will work for small snails.
Ken

[danzel]

i would suggest leaving the snail in there. The shrimps will eat it the moment it die. So there is nothing to worry

[danzel]

I think one of mine may have croaked too. It burrowed itself down into the rocks right up against the side of the bowl (in a whole pile of shrimp waste) and hasn't emerged from its shell in days. I've noticed they retract into their shells for periods of time, but I've never seen one do it for this long. If it is dead the shrimp can't get to it where it is, I may try nudging it soon.

mine also retract into its shell for a long period of time before it died

[shrimpy4]

Wow, I think most if not all of my snails are dead. I just came back from the weekend and a half dozen of their shells are in the same place they were on Friday, I can't see most of the others, and only one has its footpad stuck to the side of the bowl. All of the other shells I see are retracted, I can't see any snail body-parts. My Opae are fine though, what could've caused something like this? My SG is steady at 1.012, though I have no other measurement tools. I'm assuming if the environment was toxic though it would've affected the Opae. Lack of food for the snails? If there really are almost 10 dead snails I should take them out of the bowl, maybe clean out the shells and throw those back. I do have a turkey baster as well I use to add water to the bowl, so it shouldn't be too traumatizing for the Opae.

[KenCotigirl]

Very weird to lose all your snails. When you take them out put them in a small container with tank water for a few days to make sure they are dead. Do not know why it would happen.

[Mustafa]

Cotigirl/Ken is right. That's not normal. Lack of food is *definitely* not the issue. Just leave the snails in there...they may not be dead, just inactive. Also, try shining a flashlight into that tank if you happen to be awake in the middle of the night. These snails tend to be more active at night.

[shrimpy4]

Well, fairly certain they've all kicked the bucket. Or do they commonly go inactive for weeks at a time? All of the shells have been sitting in the same place for nearly two weeks (even the last one that was moving around) and I can't see any snail heads.

I'm also wondering if my Chaeto is dying? When I first put it into the tank, it was a lighter green and very spread out up to the surface. I've noticed over time that there are a few brown spots on the strands, and it's sort of sagged now into about half its original volume. Maybe just settling? What could be affecting everything but the shrimp? The water surface is developing a regular protein film, which I have to scrape up every few days or it gets so viscous I worry there's no oxygenation.

On a happier note, one of my coworkers happened upon my bowl and mentioned she's had an ecosphere up by her desk for a year now. She wasn't quite buying the "death sphere" analogy, until she went up to check on hers and quite literally noticed that one of her 4 had died, must have been in the last day or two. We released hers into my bowl just before the weekend, and they seem to have taken.

[KenCotigirl]

Nice save on the four survivors.

[Mustafa]

Hmmm...the snails don't usually die that quickly of lack of food. No idea what happened there. As for the macroalgae, they may not grow and sometimes even shrink if there are not enough nutrients for them. That's ok, though, as the focus is the shrimp and not the algae. As soon as even minute amounts of nutrients are available, the macroalgae will grow. In the past I've tried eradicating it from certain tanks...and was unsuccessful...even the tiniest fragment grows to a big wad after some time. The only tanks where I have observed some problems with growth despite nutrients are tanks with a complete crushed coral substrate...not sure why. I was suspecting slightly higher pH, but have not pursued that issue in earnest to come up with any reliable answers.

[shmohney]

I still haven't ordered any shrimp, but am enjoying watching my snails. One of the smaller ones is odd - I NEVER see it active or out of the shell. But if I move it to a spot on top of the crushed coral and against the glass, the next day it is buried in the coral. A day or two later it's deeper. The shell position will change. But it never goes anywhere, just buries deeper, when I'm not looking. All of the other snails are super active, and I can usually count 4 to 9 of the original 13 in sight at any one time. Some of them will bury themselves temporarily, but never for long.

[shrimpy4]

ZOMBIES!!!!

I came back after this weekend and at least 2 of the snail that haven't moved in weeks, but that I nudged with a wooden stick, had moved around the bowl. There are still several that haven't moved in a month, but it does seem that they may have fervent feeding phases and then stay dormant for days if not weeks at a time. It's pretty bizarre considering how active all of them were originally. I'm still convinced at least a handful are dead, but if some are still alive and capable of moving around, possibly they gorge themselves and then hibernate or something.

[Mustafa]

Your tank is probably just settling in. If you do absolutely nothing, the snails will probably start moving again (and some may actually have died) and you may actually see some babies, too. They are not "hibernating", they are just waiting for better conditions.

[shrimpy4]

Is there anything I can do to help them along? My 1 gallon bowl is so small, and the first few days they were feeding so far up the sides they were almost out of the water (only a thin meniscus of water was keeping them wet). There's quite a bit of algae building up on the sides and on the dead coral, some of it pinhead sized green but a lot of it's brown. I wonder about the brown though, my formerly white sand-dollar is almost all brown, is it rotting? The opae love hiding underneath it, it's one of the only shaded places in the bowl.