I think my snails might be sick

[jkun17]

I've got a pair of snails in my fish tank along with a betta and they're normaly very active (as active as snails can be) but recently they've recessed into their shells. Not entirely recessesed, though they have slightly less than half a cm of their actual flesh exposed. I've seen them like this before, but never at the same time and never for this duration of time. I also have smaller snails that I assume they gave birth two (they weren't in my tank before and just appeared out of the blue) and those two are still roaming around my tank relativley freely.

So, are my snails sick? If so what can I do to help them? Are my snails dead? If so, should I sanitize my tank?

 

[acsuth]

what kind of snails are they? If they are dead then they will smell really sulphuric...there aren't many things that smell worse than a dead snail. What have you been feeding them?

 

[xXMrBonesXx]

from my experience, bettas do not like snails one bit, i had a pair of gold mysterys in my female betta tank and they would try and eat it, and i had a medium sized pest snail in one of my male betta tanks and he killed it

 

[jkun17]

They're inca snails. They seem to get along fairly well with my betta but I guess he could have been attacking them. I just moved them into my tank with guppies and it looks like my gold inca is coming out of its shell, but my black snail is still recessed. I don't think its dead but it's been like this for a few days.

 

[acsuth]

what have you been feeding them? You might try adding a little bit of Melafix -- it's a general "health tonic" and is not harmful to invertebrates...it has done a good job of perking up my snails in the past. P. Bridgesii need a lot of protein in their diets -- start feeding them shrimp pellets, or any other sinking high-protein food.