The smell of a dead mystery snail...

I've lost quite a few mystery snails over the years, but never noticed the smell, I had shrimp in the tanks that cleaned it before I knew it was dead. This tank has no shrimp. This tank had a snail sitting at the bottom a couple days with its back to me. I finally netted him out. You don't know it until you know it...

 

Dead snail reminds me of sewage, or serious halitosis. The smell of a dozen red roses it ain’t!

 

They say you will know if a snail is dead...... thats how....lol

 

The GREATEST SMELL ON EARTH!!! Though seriously, i prefer the taste and smell of jet fuel to the smell of dead snail.

 

When you smell that smell there will be no doubt about it. It is a goner and not just sleeping.

On another note. Just because you find one out of the tank with both shell and trap door dried out don't give up on it. I found one like that just last week. I put it back in the tank and in just a little while it was cruising around in the tank. I still haven't figured out how it got where it was. Since it couldn't fly it had to have climbed first down and then up an electric cord. Mystery snails truly are mysteries.

 

The GREATEST SMELL ON EARTH!!! Though seriously, i prefer the taste and smell of jet fuel to the smell of dead snail.

I actually really like the smell of jet fuel.

 

I actually really like the smell of jet fuel.

You should try tasting it!

 

This was a 10 gallon tank I was about to clean out this week and build it back up anew. It became my Sunday project because it was so bad, it wasn't sitting there. Had a couple other snails, 3 cories, and 2 male guppies in it. Found a baby cory while draining it. I knew a few weeks ago there were eggs, 3 days went by and I thought they either hatched or were eaten. 1 survived and is now in my shrimp tank.

This smell permeated the room, the water, was horrid, and I felt bad for every living creature. I drained what I could, caught fish, floated them in other tanks, and cleaned it out with gloves on. Hubby dumped all the stones into the trash, which goes tomorrow. I have a nice clean extra tank in the basement that I will fill tomorrow (yes I will certainly be cleaning this up, but too much going on leading to Christmas, it will wait til next year) getting online now to start ordering supplies. I had a sponge filter in that tank that I threw away, so can't use it for seeding. I wanted no part of what was in that tank! (There were pieces of meat from that snail and that's all the description I'll write.) I have some extra HOB filters and will get one started with material from my AC70 in the larger tank, at least it will be cycled fast.

And when I put fish in the other tanks, I acclimated them but did not put a drop of that pollution into the tanks, I caught them by hand and moved them out! Ugh, that was brutal. There's a very good reason to keep shrimp in tanks, they clean things and you never knew it happened. More amanos will be coming the next time we get a break in the weather!