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apple snail

5K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  iamntbatman 
#1 ·
is it possible, that because of a slightly high ammonia spike, and the fact the my apple snail had a bit of algae growing on it, that my otos could have eaten through it's shell? this morning i noticed it floating on top the water dead. lately i had noticed the aber outer layer was gone, checked the water to see an unusually high level of ammonia and moved the snail and otos to another tank with perfect cycled parameters. otos still seemed to be paying a lot of attention to the snail but i figured they just wanted the algae growth on its shell. well now i have a dead snail and am totally confused.

if ANYONE has another explanation please let me know. i am having horrible luck with these snails and need some advice.

Thanks in advance.

By the way, all levels seem to be back to normal in my other tank. will continue to monitor it closely.
 
#4 ·
Yeah, your water is way to soft. In soft water their shell deteriorates much faster. Try playing around with the pH if possible and try giving your snail calcium.
 
#5 ·
Little-Fizz said:
Yeah, your water is way to soft. In soft water their shell deteriorates much faster. Try playing around with the pH if possible and try giving your snail calcium.
if u dont mind me asking because i have some pond snail live stock for my puffer...umm how do you give a snail calcium? and how can u make the water hard? or soft?
 
#6 ·
I wouldn't worry to much about your pond snails if they are just for food. I'm sure your puffer would like the softer shells because it would make it easier to crush them. But theres a thread for apple snails shell deterioration in the inverts section. You should use calcium citrate powered or I imagine they have tablet form for your snail. And try to lower your pH to about 7.6ish, thats ideal for these guys.
 
#7 ·
Little-Fizz said:
I wouldn't worry to much about your pond snails if they are just for food. I'm sure your puffer would like the softer shells because it would make it easier to crush them. But theres a thread for apple snails shell deterioration in the inverts section. You should use calcium citrate powered or I imagine they have tablet form for your snail. And try to lower your pH to about 7.6ish, thats ideal for these guys.
well yea i was also planning on adding a apple snail because i love those xD and i wanted it to grow to its maximum size (size of a softball) xD umm how long will it take em to grow?
 
#8 ·
Hmm ok lol now I've confused myself, I just assumed you guys were talking about Pomacea bridgesii, but now I understand you mean pomacea canaliculata? Be careful with those guys, they will strip your planted tanks bare in a matter of hours :shock:
 
#9 ·
Little-Fizz said:
Hmm ok lol now I've confused myself, I just assumed you guys were talking about Pomacea bridgesii, but now I understand you mean pomacea canaliculata? Be careful with those guys, they will strip your planted tanks bare in a matter of hours :shock:
im not a snail expert xD i just know the basics xD but i do i know i want that snail dubbed "largest freshwater snail"
 
#10 ·
Well a pomacea canaliculata can grow the size of your fist and pomacea bridgesii grows to be about the size of a golf ball and is commonly sold as the mystery snail. I've never seen pomacea canaliculata at my lfs, unless they are mixed in the with mystery snails.
 
#11 ·
pH is around 8.
That pH is fine- what is your kh and gh? I usually add Equilibrium by Seachem to raise my gh (it's just a bunch of calcium powder and stuff). But you shouldn't do that unless you can measure your hardness.

Little-Fizz, ph and hardness are different things. Ph is NOT a measure of hardness or calcium content. I, for instance, have *very* soft water with a ph of 8.6. KH and GH are the measures hardness. Neither of those will tell you how much calcium is in the water, but a high GH indicates a decent amount of calcium as that is one of the minerals that hardens water.
 
#12 ·
That sounds like shell erosion to me.

It seems strange to have a shell erode in a pH higher than 7. However, a lack of calcium would definitely prohibit the snail's ability to grow properly, so it could be that you just don't have much calcium in the water so the shell wasn't growing as thick as would be ideal.

Honestly, I haven't even kept on top of my GH and KH since moving to my current residence. My pH is 7.2 and my snails do just fine with no supplements, so I must have enough calcium in the water for them. At my old apartment, my pH sat at around 6.8 and I started to get some shell erosion, so I started feeding them regular human calcium supplement pills. It's kind of hard to determine if the calcium was really dissolving in the water (I didn't have a kit for KH at the time) or if the snails were ingesting it by eating the pills (which they seemed to love) but either way it seemed to at least stem the tide of erosion until they were moved to water with a higher pH.
 
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