[MellC]

My main tank is a 20gal. I have Teras (neons and glow lights) Cherry Barbs, Corys, a Rafael, and GloFish, a red Beta, and 3 snails. One is white and rather large, and two are smaller and black (or they were when I got them, a few months ago). I'm not sure what type of snails they are. I got them at Petsmart so I'm assuming they are Apple's. I had another yellow one but he/she died last week and when the shell floated to the front and I scooped it out it was full of holes, pits, and cracks it was also really thin in places. I'm scared to death that the rest of them will bump off too.... I'll go grab some spinach now, my fish won't eat it but maybe my snails will.

Right now I have no clue what my perimeters are. I just do my water changes once a week sometimes every two weeks, and I use Prime for my tap water.

I read on a post on here somewhere (don't think I could get back to it) that I could put tums or Caltraite in my tank, but will tums harm my community tank? We have the fruit flavored kind.... Tums respectively that is.

I also have a 2.5 with a Blue beta in it, and a 10gal with nothing in it. I don't have room to set it up and having it on the floor is not an option as I have a rather smart cat who figured out how to open the flip-lid within 10min. of me getting it several years back... She loves "fishing", so as you can see it would be like shooting fish in a barrel for her. Plus I have no room in my room to set up another stand. Anyway would it be better for me to put all three snails in the small tank and treat them, or leave them where they are?

Any help would be fantastic!

 

[Romad]

If they are lacking in calcium, you might want to stick with calcium supplements sold at the pet stores.

I know that some people put cuttlebones into tanks for the snails but I have no experience so will let others chime in on that one.
Calcium rich veggies are always good too.

Good luck and I hope they get healthier soon.

 

[JDM]

Sounds like you water is just very soft. If there are calcium supps, that can help but adding Equilibrium to bring up the overall hardness would also help. I used crushed egg shells to bump up the calcium carbonate levels, it worked well but was a small scale test.

You do need to know that the water is soft first though. If city water, check the website or call.

Jeff

 

[Byron]

Agree, first thing is to determine the GH (general hardness) of your tap water. It may be sufficient, in which case other options need to be looked into. Though from your description I would expect soft water. But adding this or that is not always safe for the fish, and you don't want to jeopardize the fish in order to perhaps have the snails survive. Let's get the GH number before resorting to methods that may not be necessary or may not work anyway.

Byron.

 

[MellC]

Thank you! Well they love Spinach! Which is a good thing because I hate it and hate handling it. Would my Petsmart be able to test the tap? I know a lot of people o here don't like Petsmart but I love the store I go too, one or two of the managers know a lot about fish (and cats). I found the pdf on the public works portion of my towns website but I'm a design student so I have no clue what they are talking about....

 

[MoneyMitch]

post a link to it, we can read and translate it for you ^^

 

[MellC]

Ym9vbnRvbi5vcmd8dG93bi1vZi1ib29udG9ufGd4Ojc4NGU1MmU5ODRhZmVhZWI
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[MellC]

Crazy, the computer at school wouldn't let me post the link but my cell will.... Anyway thank you! I'm stuck here till 10 or 11pm.
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[Byron]

That "link" doesn't work for me...can you just spell out the general municipal site, and I can probably find it?

 

[MellC]

You lost me on municipal lol. but the site is boonton.org under "Public Works" all the way at the bottom are a series or group of pdf links.

 

[Byron]

You lost me on municipal lol. but the site is boonton.org under "Public Works" all the way at the bottom are a series or group of pdf links.

I searched around, and under the link for Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority I found a report but it is only concerned with contaminants. You need to call them and ask about the general hardness and carbonate hardness/Alkalinity.

 

[MellC]

Okay so the guy I talked to said the General Hardness is 160 milligrams per liter, and the Alkalinity 118 milligrams per liter. He said the highest they are allowed to have the general hardness is 200 milligrams per liter, and I forgot for the other one.

 

[JDM]

Well, that's not that soft that I would be concerned about water hardness.... Pretty close to 9 dGH.

I can't suggest anything else other than to be sure that they have a decent diet... I don't know what you might need to do to supplement them.

Jeff.

 

[Byron]

I concur on the GH. I would not add to this (as with putting calcium in the tank) as the soft water fish you have will not appreciate harder water.

I know nothing about Apple Snails; the small common snails that I have (Malaysian Livebearing and bladder/pond snails) manage in my soft water which I raise to 5 or 6 dGH solely for the plants, as I have soft water fish.

Byron.

 

[MellC]

So what do I feed my slimy friends? I didn't know they are supposed to have special food. I figured like starfish snails ate decomposing matter and were fine with that.... I have them on a schedule of flakes everyday, with blood worms on Wed. shrimp pellets or veggie disks on Sat. and a combo of the three on Sun. My betas get a quarter of a shrimp cube, or the freeze dried blood worms everyday as they don't care to much for the Beta pellets. All supplemental food is Omega One, and my flakes are Aquian (I probably misspelled that) but the red Beta (Alfred-Red) is swimming free in the tank so they have been getting worms or shrimp every night. He won't eat anything unless it's meat, thank god.

So is there something I can feed them (fish and snails) that is safe for everyone? Or what would be appropriate for my snails?

 

[MellC]

Thank you guys for your help, I very much appreciate it.

 

[MellC]

They are Mystery Snails! I just looked them up on Petsmart.

 

[JDM]

Algae wafers if they just need more food perhaps. I hear of some feeding them vegetables.

Jeff.

 

[MellC]

I gave the big white snail (or Alfred-White) a rather large leave of spinach from the frozen veggie bag he/she ate it in less then 3 min. So they definitely like veggies. But they don't eat my live plants, odd. Hopefully a combo of the wafers and leafs will do the trick.