Nerites shell deterioration

[Barry Tetra]

Hello everyone!

So I have nerites with pretty messed up shell in a soft water planted tank with soft water fishes, Is there anyway to add calcium into the water without harming soft water fishes?

 

[itiwhetu]

Not really, all snails need an Alkaline slightly hard environment to be happy long term. I used to keep apple snails in soft tanks but looking back on it, they suffered.

 

[Gypsum]

Yeah, I tried keeping snails in my very soft, acidic water, even adding cuttlefish shells to increase calcium, but their shells eventually deteriorated. It doesn't work. People add corals and all sorts of things to harden their water, but everything else I own is a soft water, Amazonian fish so I was not going to go that far.

That said, I have one nerite who has outlasted all the other snails. I think I've had it for well over a year now. Who knows why?

 

[StevenF]

The shell will not heal the damage once it occurs is permanent. The issue is your PH. Acidic water erodes the shell . So you need to get your PH up. What is your PH? The simple way to do that is to put a sea shell in the tank. The sea shell will react with the acids and neutralize time. As the shell dissolves it pushes the PH and GH up. In myexperienceteh GH increase is not large and should not affect your fish. the PH stabilized at 7. Sea shells will not dissolve in fresh water with a PH above 7. It is self regulating and the only maintenance needed is to replace the sea shell when it dissolves a way. which for me is about 1 year.

 

[Colin_T]

move the snail into another tank with water that has a pH above 7.0 and doesn't have CO2 added.