Low Salinity - Dead Snails?

[darren24]

I should know better. I have not calibrated my refractometer in a while. I noticed corals not looking real good and several dead snails. A member here took some of my water for testing and called me back and said he had only checked the salinity and it was 1.022. My refracto was reading 1.025. So I calibrated it and sure enough I got 1.022. Would a salinity level this low kill snails or is it just coincidence? I show the other readings below but will post what the member that is also testing gets.

DKH 9.5
Temp 77-79
Calcium 430
Mag 1370

Tank is a standard 120 with dual overflows. I use an eshopps 300 sump. For flow I have a Vortech 40 and a 10 with a large Korolia (not sure which one). Light is the ATI LED T5 combo. Bulbs are being changed today but they are 3 ATI Blue Plus and 1 purple plus. LED's will of course stay the same. The fixture is "short" for this tank but I have the most light demanding corals towards the center.

Thanks, Darren

 

[northgahillbilly]

Im not sure if that would kill off snails or not, but make sure not to bring the salinity up too fast, if you add some salt to your top off container it will slowly bring it up without stressing anything more.

 

[bulkrate]

That doesn't seem WAY too off... some snails appear to be more sensitive to salinity swings than others (I'm looking at you, banded trochus')

Depends how fast the salinity change happened - evaporation/top-off mistake over time should be fine; wildly different water-change water less so. I know of several local stores that vary widely in what they keep their invertebrate holding tanks at... from 1.021-1.026. Doesn't seem to matter too much provided appropriate acclimation practices were used on transfer.

Are they really dead or or only MOSTLY-dead? You may want to put them in a holding container and slowly drip back up to normal salinity over the course of a 2-3 hours just to see if any start moving again.

 

[redstang]

Is your alk consistent? I had alk swings in the past that I blame for mass snail losses. I wouldn't think that salinity, as long as it changed slowly, would kill off the snails.

 

[hnguyen]

BulkRate;998306 wrote: That doesn't seem WAY too off... some snails appear to be more sensitive to salinity swings than others (I'm looking at you, banded trochus')

Depends how fast the salinity change happened - evaporation/top-off mistake over time should be fine; wildly different water-change water less so. I know of several local stores that vary widely in what they keep their invertebrate holding tanks at... from 1.021-1.026. Doesn't seem to matter too much provided appropriate acclimation practices were used on transfer.

Are they really dead or or only MOSTLY-dead? You may want to put them in a holding container and slowly drip back up to normal salinity over the course of a 2-3 hours just to see if any start moving again.

I agree, even if your refractometer is off, your salinity should drop at a steady rate instead of a huge drop. Also, from my understanding, snails can handle pretty big drops in salinity without ill effects. I've ordered snails online from a few vendors and recall all of them stating not to drip acclimate snails since it would kill them. Instead you should just throw them in the tank right away. I forgot the reason why and will look it up and re-post once I find it.

 

[redstang]

Hnguyen;998310 wrote: I agree, even if your refractometer is off, your salinity should drop at a steady rate instead of a huge drop. Also, from my understanding, snails can handle pretty big drops in salinity without ill effects. I've ordered snails online from a few vendors and recall all of them stating not to drip acclimate snails since it would kill them. Instead you should just throw them in the tank right away. I forgot the reason why and will look it up and re-post once I find it.

Yeah, that's what I've done with my CUC packages as well. Float and in they go. I've kept the majority of my dwarf cerith's alive for about 6 months now when before they'd never last more than a month it seemed. Like I stated earlier though, I had horrible alk swings due to ignorance.

 

[hnguyen]

Here's what I found on reefcleaners.com

Articles

All Animals at this Time:
1. Float the bag in your tank to get the animals used to the temperature in your aquarium.

2. Wait 15 minutes.

3. Add animals to the tank, discard shipping water and any towels used in the packaging.

<span style="color: Red">4. DO NOT DRIP ACCLIMATE.</span>

It is normal if many of the shipping bags have little water, and a wet paper towel. They were shipped that way purposefully.

Important: Snails may go through shock during shipping, and be closed when they arrive. You should give them plenty of time to come out of their shells and move around before deciding they didn't make the trip. Snails may go dormant for up to 3 days.

You may find this to be different than the acclimation procedure you are used to carrying out. <span style="color: red">The reason we ask our customers to use this procedure is because our snails and crabs live intertidally, and can handle swings in ph/salinity without a problem. However, what they can't handle is toxic levels of ammonia. During the shipping process, ammonia levels in the shipping bags build, while the ph level goes down. As the ph goes down the toxicity of ammonia also goes down. However, when your tank water with normal ph is introduced to the shipping bags, and the ph rises, so does the toxicity of the ammonia, and you will be poisoning the livestock</span>. Please don't do this and certainly never let livestock sit out in buckets with shipping water exposed to fresh air for a long period of time, we know of no surer way to kill your new arrivals. Please don't acclimate them in this way, we do not cover the losses that will result, and will enforce this policy strictly. We understand you may not prefer different acclimation procedures, but this works and the rest will lead to more losses so please experiment with other products, not ours we do not accept the additional risk involved. Any other method of acclimation voids the Alive Arrival Guarantee. It is an easy method of acclimation and it works fine, please follow it.

 

[bulkrate]

Thanks for the reefcleaner's info, Hnguyen... in my experience that's very valid for inverts that are shipped overnight or longer in water. In that scenario as John states the water chemistry in the bag once opened rapidly shifts towards toxicity for the contents. That environment is seriously more dangerous to the critters than the possibility of a couple points salinity swing.

You pick your poison and rolls the dice.

When you carry the bag home from a local store, there SHOULD NOT be any appreciable ammonia build-up in the bag over the course of 30 minutes to a couple hours. In that scenario I've had snails go belly-up without a drip acclimation whenever there's been more than a couple 0.002-0.003 difference. Again, not all but some more sensitive species.

EDIT - I'd also look at alkalinity... that swinging can cause no end of problems, too... and snails/corals are the figurative canaries of our tanks.

 

[hnguyen]

Honestly, I have snails die all the time and I'm sure others do too. Way I see it, as long as all of them don't go belly up all at once and all other fish and coral are doing well. I just replace them since their cheap. I wish I had a better answer for the OP, but if everything else is doing well then just replace the dead ones.

 

[redstang]

Hnguyen;998326 wrote: Honestly, I have snails die all the time and I'm sure others do too. Way I see it, as long as all of them don't go belly up all at once and all other fish and coral are doing well. I just replace them since their cheap. I wish I had a better answer for the OP, but if everything else is doing well then just replace the dead ones.

Tends to be true too. I honestly have no idea what the average life expectancy of a snail is even supposed to be. I try to keep mine alive as long as possible. But they do need replacing every so often.

 

[hnguyen]

That's a good question. I'm down to less then half of where I started with snails and it's been about half a year. I know non of my fish are killing them since I only have 2 tangs, a wrasse and a clown fish.

 

[skriz]

That's not low enough to kill them.

Depending on how many you introduce, they can starve themselves out since they're so efficient.

I always introduce them in a tank in one large pile. Any snail that's still there after a day or so is DOA and I remove them. If you spread them out to begin with, you'll never know which one's are dead until they've already contaminated your tank nicely

 

[redstang]

Hnguyen;998329 wrote: That's a good question. I'm down to less then half of where I started with snails and it's been about half a year. I know non of my fish are killing them since I only have 2 tangs, a wrasse and a clown fish.

Which wrasse? Some will pick off snails.

 

[hnguyen]

RedStang;998344 wrote: Which wrasse? Some will pick off snails.

Melanurus Wrasse. From what I understand, these only go after worms and pods right?

 

[skriz]

Hnguyen;998345 wrote: Melanurus Wrasse. From what I understand, these only go after worms and pods right?

They can go after shrimps, crabs, snails, etc. too.

 

[hnguyen]

Skriz;998347 wrote: They can go after shrimps, crabs, snails, etc. too.

No wonder the dang thing is so fat!!!:doh:

It has left my cleaner shrimp alone though and I've never really seen it pick at my snails. Oh well, at least it's feed.

 

[redstang]

I think for the most part if you keep them well fed they'll leave everything else alone. For the most part lol!

 

[skriz]

Hnguyen;998348 wrote: No wonder the dang thing is so fat!!!:doh:

It has left my cleaner shrimp alone though and I've never really seen it pick at my snails. Oh well, at least it's feed.

Ha! If it's leaving your shrimps alone, I'd say you're good to go.