Something odd with snails

[RonS]

Hi all,

Haven’t been around in a while, but I do interact on Facebook a good bit.

anyway.... I’m experiencing something strange in my tank and I’m hoping someone knows what I’m doing wrong.

so, a few months ago, my trochus snails would randomly start “freezing”. They would just stop in place, fall off the rock, etc. then they would start moving again. After a while, they all died off.

then my fighting conch started doing the same thing. I think he’s still alive, but he goes “stunned” for weeks on end.

through it all, my nassarius snails were fine, even spawning. Then the other day, they seemed to be “stunned”. Then the revived. But now I fear they are all dead. No sign for several nights now.

what’s brought this to a head is that I added 3 Berghia nudis to my tank to deal with an ugly aiptasia problem. It seems like one has been frozen in place for days now. They are too expensive to have die!!

The fish are fine, corals are growing like crazy, and the hermits are active all over.

of course, im going to tell you that “all my parameters are fine”. I’m not going to go through them all, but pH, alk, salinity, NO3, etc, are all nominal.
My LFS suggested maybe my temperature is too high (I generally run things around 79f), but I’ve dropped it down to 76/77 and there’s no change. I also backed my salinity down from 1.026 to 1.025.

sometimes my conch seemed to wake up after a water change, but I have done a huge amount of changes (several big changes and many small) lately and the problem hasn’t gone away.

In addition to the aiptasia, I am fighting hair/turn algae. I had a red slime problem, but it went away to be replaced by green slime. I started carbon dosing a few weeks ago (after the snail deaths) and I seem to be making headway against the algae. My skimmer isn’t running as aggressively as I’d like, but it is definitely picking up the algal death. I am also regularly siphoning it out.

im running UV.

I use ESV salt, ESV 2-part (auto dosing), their trace elements (with carbon dosing additive), and their iodine and strontium supplements. The trace/I/Sr are all dosed at or below ESV’s recommended levels. I do not have a way to test for these elements.

The display is a 48 gallon mixed reef with a 40L sump. I estimate total water volume to be 60 or so gallons. Water flow is managed with a 1500gph main pump and a gyre 1k in the DT. I also run small power heads in the sump, several with aeration. Im
Considering adding a pair of Current eFlux power heads with controller.

Im sure I’ve left something out, but that’s all I can think of for now.

please let me know if you’ve had experience with this specific problem. I’m at my wits’ end!!

your help is very much appreciated!!

—Ron

 

[bhodges82]

How high is your magnesium?

 

[Treylipp]

I had this same issue with turbos and trochus and conchs they would fall and appear dead few days later, I even went to try to put them on the glass or my frag racks and they never moved, and honestly, my issue was a combination of a few things I found out was wrong my PH was low and my cal, then the Hanna pens I was testing salinity was off by .004 (was testing 1.025 which essentially was 1.030) and my PH Hanna pen was off by .3 and so I backed salinity down slowly day by day and dosed to fix PH then practically a change over night. I noticed my snails started moving again and I bought two more conchs and they’re doing great. Don’t exactly know what caused it for me but I fixed those things and my snails are not moving hope it helped!

 

[RonS]

I found out was wrong my PH was low and my cal,

yes - exactly!!

So, I use a decent quality refractometer that I have calibrated with 1.025 solution. Ca is around 370 using Red Sea test kit. pH is via a Hanna pen using 2-point calibration, and it appears to be steady around 8.2 - 8.3

Sigh. I’ll try verifying pH and salinitywith my alternates in case my calibration is off.

thanks again for sharing your experience!

 

[RonS]

How high is your magnesium?

Ugh. I don’t test often because when I did it was always stable. I use ESV salt and their 2-part, which is supposed to maintain Mg in the proper proportions. But I’ll check it in the morning - it has been a while :/

 

[bhodges82]

Ugh. I don’t test often because when I did it was always stable. I use ESV salt and their 2-part, which is supposed to maintain Mg in the proper proportions. But I’ll check it in the morning - it has been a while :/

I ask because high magnesium levels is really bad for snails and leads to death.

 

[Treylipp]

Ugh. I don’t test often because when I did it was always stable. I use ESV salt and their 2-part, which is supposed to maintain Mg in the proper proportions. But I’ll check it in the morning - it has been a while :/

My mag was around 1320 (Salifert) Cal 430 (Hanna) alk 8.8 (hanna), I had the EXACT same problem my corals were thriving torches growing heads left and right, zoas multiplying, and livestock no issues. I really didn’t see an improvement until I fixed my PH because I had to drop salinity slowly so I would say it more than likely the PH or temps but I believe the temps on the Hanna Pens are also off for me by 1.5 degrees or so IMO
i kept it at 77 it was 75ish


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[RonS]

. I really didn’t see an improvement until I fixed my PH

My pH is allegedly stable around 8.2. I keep alk fairly high (9.6 - 9.8). Calcium is around 370. I’ll double check pH with test kit... thanks!

 

[ActiveAngel]

That calcium is pretty low, but I don’t know if that would cause this issue. And your Alk is pretty high, and may be a contributing factor.

And for temp, salinity, Alk, and pH; what test kits/tools are you using? And have you cross-checked using other test kits? There is room for both human error and equipment error in all test kits. And why we think may be a little off could potentially be off by a lot. Double checking with a different tool helps reduce that risk for important parameters