Brimstonepdx

All but one of my apple snails are dead ;/ my army of babies where eaten because I never did get a second tank set up to move them into (totally my fault here) My Gouramies killed off 4 of them when I first introduced the fish to the tank by pecking them to death. That left me with 5 adults that have slowly started dying off and over this last week my last two big purples have died off and I only have one Golden left.

All my water parameters are good ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates between 10 to 30 depending on when I test 30 is usually on water change day. My fish are happy fins up not clamped no obvious signs of stress my plants are a little worse for ware because I had to turn the lights off for several days during our heat waves.

So now I am wondering if the snails where just Old when I bought them? They ranged from 1" to 2" in size. Or where they just not getting enough food and I starved them off? I usually toss in 4 to 5 algae wafers every other day but I know the fish all loved them to so I'm not sure if they ever got any.

Sorry for yet another novel :P your advise is appreciated

matt6765

Sorry for your loss.... some snails from pet stores are just week and may die of shock

coffeebean

if you saw soem of them getting pecked at im going to guess that is what did the others in as well. i lost 12 that way. my angelfish and swordtails would peck at them when they were trying to get to the surface. they all died over a short time.

Brimstonepdx

I guess I'll have to wait until i get a less "aggressive" community tank going before I do snails again. Now I need to figure out what I can put in there for clean up crew.

Time

I agree. Sorry for your snails but maybe you can move the fish. Lol my fish eat betta pellets and the betta goes off at them. Too bad the snails don't have self defense. I would like a snail with canons for protection or something, maybe if they had a spiked shell, they wouldn't peck. A spiked shell would be a great adaptation for snails.

Brimstonepdx

lol I like the idea of snail cannons hehe.

I think I have decided to try a different type of snail for now. I found a bunch of MTS on aquabid for a good rate (my LFS sells them for 1.50 each!) Since they spend most of their time in the substrate (which will save me from manually churning my sand) and are live bearers they will hopefully have a better chance.