Snails And Disease

[RoscoMcFish]

Just had two apples snails die in my tank, put them in one day, die during the night, day after next all my convicts and jellybeans are dead, and my oscars are basicaly on their way out. Anyone have any sources with regards to what evil madness these things release into the water when they die?, if i had known what they were like when they died wouldnt have bothered with them.

Cheers.

 

[Donya]

Have you checked the tanks' water parameters? How big is the tank? For snails to die so quickly it usually means something's pretty badly off in the tank already. If you removed the snails as soon as you saw them dead within 24h, they may have added to a small ammonia spike but not enough to nuke a tank. Snails don't "release" anything when they die that fish wouldn't as far as causing damage to a tank.

 

[vancouver]

I would guess that your water was bad..

I don't know why you'd be trying to keep apple snails with oscars and convicts either.. They are definitely not compatible..

What size tank are we talking about and how many fish were in there?

How often do you do water changes?

 

[RoscoMcFish]

nah nothing to do with the water, the snails died most likely died from stress after a long haul flight from singapore and being moved so quickly into a new tank. The reasons they were in my tank is simply because the oscars and convicts are far too small to eat them whole and due to excessive feeding are mostly passive.

Does anyone know of related diseases snails carry when they die?, after doing a bit of reading i understand now they carry a multitude of diseases and parasites already, especialy if they happen to be in the wild, and farmd snails, well not much different.

 

[vancouver]

Diseases cant be passed from snails to fish.

 

[Donya]

after doing a bit of reading i understand now they carry a multitude of diseases and parasites already

Not sure where you're getting that info from. I've dealt with quite a lot of wild-caught freshwater snails and that's simply not the case. There are some very specific parasites that snails can wind up with, all of which can be gotten rid of and only cause problems over a matter of weeks and months, not immediate death. As for diseases, there are a couple that I've run accross in snails, but they are snail-specific and do not pass from snails to fish. The only things that can pass from snails to fish are flukes, which don't kill either host or affect snail/fish health in any significant way. However, even if the snails you had brought in flukes, those won't have been responsible for what happened.

If you havn't checked your water, you really aught to since that's the most likely cause of snail deaths if they arrived alive and intact in the shipment. Also if you're feeding excessively, that may well be causing not-so-great water.