Newbie with Two Tanks

[dglidden]

The snails that Mustafa sells are pretty hardy, like the shrimp. I have the same handful of snails in my tank that I had when I started it, they've been growing slowly, and I am pretty sure there are a couple baby snails in there now as well. I rarely put food in the tank, and they are happy grazing on the little algae/bacteria that does grow in there.

If you plan to move soon, and move the tank, I'd probably wait until after the move, wait for everyone to settle down, then put more snails in. But as SuperProofer said, they're not necessary, just a nice addition.

[Mustafa]

The snails may not be necessary for a while, but I find them absolutely necessary for the long term. Without them brown algae and cyanobacteria tend to take over and the substrate becomes "mucky" and possibly anaerobic after some time. May take months or years, but it will happen. For those who do not have the "Brackish Water Snails", they are substrate burrowing snails that turn over the substrate and eat all the "muck" in it.

[media_specialist]

Thanks Mustafa and the rest of the forum for your helpful replies.

I will be ordering more snails soon ---and you may see why I might be ordering double the order I thought I was going to.

So the home tank is REALLY happy now - 3 pregnant ladies! But we move in 7 days - so I hope that they don't drop the eggs due to the stress and movement of being in the car for 30 minutes for the move.

The school tank was doing FANTASTIC - but since I don't come into work over the summer - I put up a wire mesh over the top of the shrimp tank and wrote a highlighted note that said DO NOT FEED and explained that they are a closed ecosystem.
OF COURSE...a kid or custodian thought they were helping...pried off the mesh and stuck a BUNCH of food in the tank. It looked like fish flakes and Brown Planaria since they left their evidence at the scene of the crime.

The water is now green and smells kind of funky - like a dirty tank...
I am so upset this happened.

I washed off the loose algae in distilled water and put it back in. I tried to make a net of sorts with some bamboo chopsticks and nylon and polyester stockings, but the water did not go through the stockings so it did not really work as a net.
I topped it off with a little more distilled - just to get some more oxygen in the water.

Apparently the tank has been like this for a week and the shrimp and snails are still alive...I even see the baby shrimp swimming around and saw that another shrimp is carrying eggs.

PLEASE HELP!!
Should I do a water change out?
Should I just try to get a fish net and scoop out what I can see?
Should I buy more snails? (I have 10 now for the 2 and a half gallon tank.)

I don't want to have this kill them...
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Obviously I am not going to be feeding then anytime in the near future - but do you think this tank can bounce back?
I added pictures of what it looks like.
THANK YOU for your SUPPORT!

[media_specialist]

So I looked up what Brown Planaria was - and it could be live flatworms! The sticker on them said "open up live cultures."
So I reached out to one of our science teachers and he said that they are very active if they are alive in the water - and I did not see any activity other than the shrimp and snails, so perhaps they can't live in the brackish water.

But I thought of another solution - does anyone think it would be to the best interest of the shrimp and snails to move them to my home tank?
Do you think they could last another week? - that is when we are moving and I think it would be a lot on them to take them out drive them and put them in a new tank and then move the whole tank in a car.
Or should this be done sooner than later?

Or just wait the course and see if the shrimp and snails can clean it up...

Thanks again for any help!