Saltwater Problems

[karmagl]

So we are very new at this saltwater thing. We have a 120 gallon tank that we have been building peice by peice for about 7 months. Now we are at the stage we have about 70 lbs of live rock some that came with coral on them and we bought a ton of crabs and snails. Now all of the sudden our snails are dying. Our salinity is great our nitrites are 0 and amonia is between .0 and .2. The only thing that we have done different is my father in law went to the beach and on the shore found some cool rocks and shells. I know he boiled the shells to make sure no crabs were in there but we but them in our tank. about 5 shells and 2 sand dollars. There is one yellow rock I took out because I thought it might be a problem. I put a pic on here it's yellow and kinda course like sandy some of it rubs off if you rub it. Will any of these things cause our snails to die. We don't knkow where we went wrong

 

[Eversurf]

I had the same problem when I started with my tank. All my original snail have died. I never knew the exact cause, but some said it could be starvation or temperature related. Once my tank was more establish I bought another set of 6 snails and there are doing great and it's been about 3 months now. I also aquired a golf ball size snail and he is doing very well.

That's my experience with that

 

[SkiFletch]

What kind of snails? Many snails have high mortality rates in captivity for various reasons. Also, what is the tank temperature, pH, and what's the water flow like?

 

[karmagl]

Well I found the problem. Yesterday I went and flipped all the snails back over and watched. The crabs are flipping the snails ove and killing them to take their shells. Is this normal.

 

[steelhealr]

Crabs are very aggressive creatures. SH

 

[SkiFletch]

Crabs are very aggressive creatures. SH

Agreed, sadly hermits will do this

 

[Ter]

what kind of crabs do you have?
Ter

 

[wflash3]

make sure they are reef safe, IMO red legged or blue legged or the only ones i go with

-flash