Snails And Ammonia Need Advice.

My tank is cycling and had a large snail problem. Today my nan went and got a pair of assassin snails, but they're not eating anything/anyone and they're always giing above the water line. My ammonia is the problem, its showing at about 0.1 but there is nowhere else for me to put them right now. Will they survive until this ammonia is gone?

 

Do you have any products to detoxify the water? Something like Prime?

 

Nope, I have nothing at all that I can use to sort it. I did a water change and it helped but I don't want to change too much water out incase it messes the parameters up

 

What do you use to dechlorinate the water?

 

If your tank is cycled water changes won't hurt your cycle. I am thinking your aren't cycle though since you have ammonia. I won't go into detail since according to your profile you understand the cycling process. Since you don't have Prime or any product to lock up that ammonia water changes are the only way to get the ammonia down to a safer level.

What, other than the pest and assassin snails, do you have in this tank?

 

API stress coat. Its all pets at home had. I spent everything I had just to set up the tank and get the basic stuff

 

I have nothing else in the tank, I refuse to do a fish-in cycle. Im going to do another water change in a few minutes to try and drop the ammonia to a safer level

 

That's the best thing you can do.

 

I know you said you spent all your money already. So *when you can afford it* I suggest you do get yourself a bottle of Seachem Prime. You can buy it online. It's a good product to have on hand for, well, situations like this.

 

I'll definitely put it in with my next order. Hopefully that'll be the end of the month and no later. I really want this to work

 

Where is the ammonia coming from? You actually have to have some in there to grow the bacteria that is basically your cycle. That is why so many of us recommend Seachem Prime. It neutralizes low amounts of ammonia but still leaves it there to be used to grow and feed the bacteria.

 

If I were in your shoes right now I would either try to take the assassins back or I would put them in a clean glass jar with a bit of substrate in it. sand would be best. If possible a gallon glass jar would be perfect. add an airstone and occasionally take some of the pest snails out of your tank and drop them in the jar for the assassins.

Doing it this way you can go ahead and cycle your tank without having to worry about your assassins not surviving the cycling process. Their bio-load is so low that there should be no ammonia build up in the jar so weekly water changes will not be needed.

Once your tank has completed its cycle you can put the assassins back in there and let them clean up the pests that have survived the cycling process.

Once my assassins cleaned my main tank of pest snails I knew I had to continue feeding them. I actually have a 2 1/2 gallon jar set up for breeding pest snails for them. The assassins will eat things other than snails but I know they will be healthier with their preferred food so once or twice a week I pull some of the snails out of the jar for them.

 

The ammonia came from a bottle of ammonia I had. I put some in last night and I checked this morning and it was showing as no ammonia, then I checked again a little after the snails went in and bam, ammonia.

Im going to move the 2 assassins into a bottle of treated water to keep them alive until the tank os safe

 

Animals produce ammonia naturally. Getting an ammonia reading shortly after adding the snails is probably normal. Allow 24 hours for the water parameters to stabilize after adding livestock.

 

Then the ammonia level makes sense. although strange that it didn't register until later. It should have shown up shortly after you added it.

Great, The assassins should be fine in their new temp home and without them in the tank you can dose the ammonia on up and get your cycle back on track.

I don't think that is the case here since the assassin snails just went in and with their very small bio-load they couldn't have raised the ammonia level so quickly anyway.

I have actually never gotten an ammonia reading in my snail breeding jar and I have lots of them in there. It could be the Pathos I have growing in it is eating what little they produce though.

 

I'm pretty sure the ammonia was due to the first test reading a false negative or me doing something wrong. I have the bottle floating in the tank to keep the temp up and the lid off to make sure the surface of the water is aired. There is a small bladder snail in there with them but they arent bothering to eat so I put a single flake in there to inspire them

 

I see you are in the UK, me too. Prime can be bought online. Seachems products aren't carried by the big chain stores like Pets at home or maidenhead aquatics, but local independent stores may carry it. The local independent here in Bristol does.

 

Pets at home is the closest semi-decent place to me and thats 5 miles away. The only lfs other than that is where I got the snails from. I bought 3 but 1 shell was empty so these 2 are my only hopes right now. Aslong as I keep these guys alive and remove my pests, everything will be ok i hope

 

It could be they just aren't hungry right now. No need to add flakes if there is a snail in there for them. The flakes will just foul the water unnecessarily. Unless it is really cold where you are there is no need to keep their temps up. They aren't as delicate as fish so lower temps shouldn't affect them.

If it were me I would take the jar out of the tank, put 2 or 3 pest snails in there, cover them for a while to block the light out and give them time to settle in. Leave them alone for a few hours and hopefully they will have finished off the snails by then.

 

I will do what you said Mattgirl and see how things go. Once the ammonia is safe, I'll try and get the cycle fast tracked with some seed bacteria so I can give the snails some good space