Snail Death....

[Jaded_Pulse]

Hi everyone.

Looking for a bit of advice on what might have caused the death of my apple snail. I'd had him for at least 3, maybe 4 months, & he's never been particularly active, but in the past week he hadn't moved (at all), except to pull his trapdoor thing in every now & again. Nobody was picking on him & he didn't smell so I left him thinking maybe he was hibernating or something (???), but I got rather worried yesterday because I hadn't seen him even seal himself up for 2 days....But he pulled his trapdoor thing closed when i took him out, didn't smell or anything but I still put him in a bucket with fresh (dechlorinated water) & a little zucchini overnight. This morning he was clearly dead - even with the flu I could tell he stank!!

All my fish in that tank (3 albino cories, 3 black widows, & 4 colombian tetras) seem fine. I don't know what on earth happened, but I think he'd been sick for a while but I don't know what with - any ideas

Also, I seem to have 3 unidentified small brown-shelled snails in the tank, assumably arriving with the new plants I bought the other day. Do you you think this could have had anything to do with it? They don't seem to be causing any plant damage, & are really keeping the algae under control, so do you think I should keep them or will they breed like wildfire & rip up my plants as they get older?

Sorry this has been so long, thanks for reading - any advice would be very much appreciated!!

Michelle.

 

[Fish-Noobie]

they will breed like wide fire and then ull have a tank of snails instead of fish

 

[FishDan]

Also, I seem to have 3 unidentified small brown-shelled snails in the tank, assumably arriving with the new plants I bought the other day. Do you you think this could have had anything to do with it?

I doubt it. I have a tank with a couple different typesx of snails, I don't think it really matters much.

They don't seem to be causing any plant damage, & are really keeping the algae under control, so do you think I should keep them or will they breed like wildfire & rip up my plants as they get older?

They will "breed like wildfire" only if you allow it. They breed to the amount of food that is available to them. Keep overfeeding, and you will have a tank overrun by snails. Do a reasonable job making sure there is not a whole lot of uneaten food, and the snail population will be kept in check and under control. Wheather or not the will eat your plants depends on what kind of snails they are. Can you give us a pic or describe them for us?

\Dan

 

[Jaded_Pulse]

Thanks all. I don't overfeed at all, & anything that does sink to the bottom gets eaten by the cories. The only thing these snails seem to be eating at the moment is any algae growing - they've cleaned my tank up nicely, even eating algae growing on my LIVE plants (I didn't know that was possible either lol), but not touched my plants as yet.

As for the pics, the snails are very small, & I'm a really bad photographer, & I have a pretty dodgy little digicam that doesn't take great photos but I'll see how I go..........................

Well the results are pretty bad but I'll post them, see if you can find him. I'm not happy because he's climbing on one of my plants that's just getting new leaves after being chewed to bits by my fishies. Don't know if he's eating it though....

Ahh man I can't find how to post pics either. I only posted one this morning too dangit!! Ok, well if somebody could kindly enlighten me I'll post my dodgy pics.

Thanks again everyone.

 

[ger87410]

U can easily post it in the pictures section of this forum, or in the emergency section.