Dying snails?!?

[Nellyville41]

So my main 3 tank is doing great I think?!? All of my shrimps are fine and one is even berried. My snail population continues to blow up and there’s a decent amount of new baby snails. However I have quite a few snails that have died off and all I see are their empty shells. They all range in age from maybe a few weeks to a few months and even one of the older bigger ones. I don’t have anything near them that can cause any type of issue. There’s an orchid plant near but that’s was put there after. Any input?

[Vorteil]

What kind of snails? I assume MTS since I see the same thing. My nerites do great. I see empty MTS shells from time to time & this is both FW & brackish.

[Nellyville41]

They’re the ones I got from here. Also I guess it’s ok. Just look at this.

[mike.d]

Thanks for asking about this!

I've noticed the same thing with my MTS snails. The empty shells I see are larger. My smaller MTS, nerites, and shrimp are fine. I even have tons of shrimp larvae floating, too numerous to count, as well as berried shrimp.

I want to assume it's normal because the nerites and shrimp are faster at gobbling the algae, while the smaller MTS need less to survive.

[JoeG]

Nellyville41 nothing much for me to add concerning your dying snails but here is an article about the MTS (they are listed in the article as freshwater snails but we know better ):
http://aquariumbreeder.com/malaysian-tr ... rimp-tank/

Some of the observations don’t pertain to them in a brackish Opae ula tank, ie. aeration requirements, but it is an informative FYI article about the life cycle and parameters for the snails.

[Vorteil]

That's a lot of MTS in there. Consider nerites. I have both but perfer nerites. I can't seem to get rid of the nerites in my tanks.

[Dch48]

Agree with Vorteil. Nerites, especially the small Horned ones, are better than MTS and don't take over.

[Varanus]

A proviso, but in a supershrimp tank MTS won't take over either, provided you don't overfeed the tank. Nerites are certainly prettier, but in supershrimp tanks they can sometimes have trouble finding enough food (some people cycle a few between different tanks to allow algae to recover), plus they have that habit of laying hard to remove eggs on the glass.

[sliphorn]

A proviso, but in a supershrimp tank MTS won't take over either, provided you don't overfeed the tank. Nerites are certainly prettier, but in supershrimp tanks they can sometimes have trouble finding enough food (some people cycle a few between different tanks to allow algae to recover), plus they have that habit of laying hard to remove eggs on the glass.

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This is exactly how I see it too.
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[Vorteil]

I have tons of algae growing in all my tanks on the rocks and glass. For me there's a ton of food for either type of snail. The MTS breed to much due to my tank conditions.

[Dch48]

I have 16 adult shrimp, 3 month old young ones, and a horned Nerite snail in my one gallon. There is no visible algae except for the 2 small clumps of macro. I get a little worried about the food supply so they get the amount of spirulina powder that will stick to the outside of a toothpick once a week.

[Vorteil]

I would still continue to feed. Just because there's signs of algae doesn't mean 100% that there's enough food. Population density has to play a role. Like I said I have a lot of algae but I do supplement the tanks from time to time.

[Nellyville41]

So probably like 90% of the snails stopped moving. Some are dead but most from what I can see are still inside their shells. Maybe they’re hibernating or slowly dying. Temps have been fluctuating in SoCal with now being around 50 to 65 in my house.

[Vorteil]

Looks like we're both in SoCal.Personally I would consider a nerite snail. They do a great job on the alage and don't breed. The only downside is they will lay these tiny little white eggs all over the place from time to time. Here some of mine.

[JennyPenny]

I have to agree with Varanus. I would stick with the MTS snails. I had 2 nerites in my 2 gallon tank and there was not enough algae. I removed the larger nerite and kept the small horned one, but it still didn't have enough algae. I swapped it back and forth from my freshwater tank, but it died 2 years ago. I haven't had nerites since.
My tank is 4 years old and I have never fed the shrimp. My MTS snails came from a 10 pack from Mustafa, and I have never had a popluation boom. 6-7 months ago I even tossed in about 20 from a friend's freshwater tank since there didn't seem to be many in my tank anymore.