FAQs about Marine Snail Behavior

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Snails won't move!   8/3/08
Hi guys!
Have read the pages on snails, but none seem to quite solve my problem...
I had a bit of an ammonia/nitrite spike in the tank which killed a few things off... but have now got the tank back to normal so am trying to restock things I lost (having learnt a lot from the experience!).
Anyway, I bought some snails from the LFS which were crawling around happily there but after being introduced to my tank refuse to move (or move only a tiny amount). Sometimes they extend their foot and push themselves over on their sides (I know there's the problem with some species doing this but my snails are not moving around and then falling over accidentally, they don't move at all!). It's almost like they've lost all co-ordination. This is fairly unusual though, most of the time they don't move at all... I thought it might be the snails themselves so swapped for some other snails - which I made sure were active in the shop's tanks - and they did the same once they were in my tank!
<Yes... "is" the tank... water quality>
The snails were acclimatised slowly over several hours (around 3hrs in one instance, 5 in the other). They've now been in my tank 24hrs and no change...
Tank tests show:
Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate all zero.
Salinity 34-35ppt
pH 8.2
Temperature 25 (stable with combined heater/chiller unit)
Alkalinity 3.2meq
Calcium 420
Magnesium 1245
I know the magnesium level is slightly low, and from other posts I see snails are quite sensitive - could this be the problem?
<Mmm, not too low... right about right... not a problem>
Flow is approx 30* tank volume/hour, and fish/corals/shrimps seem happy. Hermit crabs are a bit sluggish but seem ok. I change 5-10% water each week.
I'm slightly at a loss! Any suggestions/other things I should test for?
Thanks!
Richard
<Well... the list is rather long (for tests/testing) and incomplete in terms of the sorts of phenomena, elements, compounds that hobbyists can do... Allow me to cut to the chase here and suggest what I would do... massive water changes... I suspect you have a "salt imbalance" problem likely... from supplement (mis) use... Do please write back re what your habits have been here, or just go ahead with some 50% change outs to get back to "just seawater" strength/concentration for the major components... This should solve the snail problem. Bob Fenner>

Re: Snails won't move!  8/5/08
Hi Bob - thanks for this. Checkered history as follows...
Tank was set up beginning 2007. Because everything was going well, and I had no problem with nitrates my first mistake was to do no water changes at all.
<Mmmm, yes>
My second mistake came at the end of 2007 when I introduced a sand-sifting starfish. This stirred up all manner of toxic waste accumulated in the sand over the twelve months and resulted in several deaths...
Having learnt these lessons, I took the starfish back to the LFS and commenced water changes. I did 10-15% every other day for around two weeks, then 10-15% once a week for several months, then 5-10% every week for the last month or so. The only real supplement I've used is Seachem Reef Plus (in addition to Seachem buffers, calcium and Red Sea Iodine).
<Mmmm>
Your chemical imbalance idea sounds a good one though - and something clearly I can't test for. Given the above info do you think it would still exist?
<Yes... much of the chloride in particular here...>
My other thought on this theme is that when I started water changes I was using Red Sea salt for RO water.
<With RO water I take it>
When I'd used a couple of buckets worth of that, I switched to Seachem Reef Salt. The two presumably have slightly different compositions - could switching salts have exacerbated the problem??
Thanks again!
Richard
<The SeaChem product is superior... not likely a problem with this switch. Again, I would execute one, two largish water changes (50% let's say) a week or two apart... and try some snails again. Bob Fenner>

Astraea Turbo Snails, beh./hlth.  -02/24/08
Crew,
Thank you in advance for your response. I've done several searches for this but can't find anything. 5 of the 15 Astraea turbo snails that I recently added to my tank are at the top waterline on the glass and have been for 48 hours now. All other occupants seem fine. I read somewhere that snails need to "breath" and that this is normal.
<Um, no, not air.>
That sounded fishy to me (no pun intended). All water parameters check out fine. Thanks!
<It's not unusual for snails to like this part of the aquarium. There's a lot of "stuff" that grows up there that they like to munch on. But just in case, you might want to take a look here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/snaildisfaqs.htm>
Ben
<Best,
Sara M.>

The snail who left his shell   3/29/07
Howdy,
<Hey there>
Here's a weird one for you.  Today I noticed one of the Jumbo Nassarius Snails in my 180g Reef seems to have left his shell.   No signs of trauma.  He is still alive and moving around somewhat strangely, but not sickly or injured. I even found his shell, and it's in perfect shape.  Water parameters are all fantastic, no known snail predators  present.  There are two Tunze stream pumps that I wonder if they could have shucked him.
<Mmm, not w/o grinding up the soft body>
Otherwise, I don't know.  Have you ever heard of this happening before?
<Mmmm, yes... from overt dire water chemistry (big, fast shifts in alkalinity mostly), and parasites of the snail invading their shells...>
and if so, what was the cause?  Everything else, corals, fish and inverts look great and are doing well..
<Perhaps this last>
Thanks, love your site.  Check out the picture, I hope I shrunk it down small enough to avoid crashing your server.
Mike
<Yes, thank you... Perhaps this "slug" will regenerate a new shell... Bob Fenner>

Thanks, and a Story re Stomatella Snails (beh.)  1/29/07
Dear Bob, et. al.:
<Greetings John, Mich with you this evening.>
First of all, many thanks to all of you for your fine WWM resources. You have all helped me gain a tremendous amount of valuable insight into the reef aquarium hobby, at times calming my fears, at others helping me form new strategies, and most always helping me to stay out of (too much) trouble.
<Hehe, this is good.>
It is a constant learning experience, and the challenge is greatly alleviated by useful knowledge and sense.
<Glad to hear!>
I have a 75g reef tank with about 100 lbs. of live rock and a 3" sand bed. This tank had been set up for at least a couple of years by the prior owners, but had been sadly neglected -- inadequate lighting, insufficient water changes and regular maintenance, etc., and the live rock and sand were really not very "live" at all. The sand was absolutely full of detritus. After moving the entire works, setting things back up, adding a new skimmer (AquaC Remora Pro), 300w of 10k and 70w of 20k MH lighting, some new additional live rock and sand and 4 months of babying, this microcosm is now doing extremely well, and has some very good diversity of life... not all to my own credit, because you and your advice also deserve some of the credit. Some "Live Sand Activator" from Coral Dynamics really kick started the sand bed, and a couple of other live micro-critter inoculations have the now very active sand bed well on its way to a stable equilibrium. The tank never did cycle (measurably, at least), and has never registered any reading for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, or phosphates.
<Awesome!>
The tank now houses the 2 yellowtail damsels which came with the original setup, a black velvet neon damsel (which was rescued from another marine tank after being attacked nearly to death by other damsels, and who has doubled in size in 3 months), a lawnmower blenny, and a powder blue tang (which I had great trepidation about adding, but who is healthy, growing, and truly thriving). I've gradually been adding corals over the past couple of months - a couple of acropora frags, two Montipora, a Pocillopora, a pumping Xenia, and most recently a yellow Fiji leather. All are thriving (though the Xenia is rather finicky), have plenty of space, and I am done adding anything for the foreseeable future. WWM and Bob's and Anthony's books have really helped me tremendously.
<The website and the books are an invaluable asset to this hobby.  I too would have been at a total loss without them.>
I don't have a question today, but do have a comment / story to share.
<Very good.>
After adding something six or so weeks ago, I began noticing tiny slug-like creatures which grew quickly to about 1/4" to 3/8" length. Within a couple of weeks there were hundreds of these animals in the tank, most notably after dark. They were hard to see on the rock since they were well-camouflaged, but they moved around very quickly, much more so than the Cerith, Astrea, and turbo snails. After seeing one of the larger of these spewing milky stuff one morning (obvious to me that this was a reproductive event), I earnestly needed to find out what these things were, fearing a pending plague. After much searching, I finally determined that they were Stomatella, and that I did not indeed have a problem after all. Their population has by now become self-regulating, and there is always a full range of sizes of these snails in the tank.
<Most excellent!  These are a great addition to any saltwater tank.>
Yesterday I took out two Maxijet 1200 powerheads with Hydor Flo rotating heads (an absolutely wonderful product for the money, IMO) to (experimentally, at least for now) replace them with Hydor Koralia powerheads. (So far I'm very impressed with these, and the general water movement in the tank is much improved, though time will tell the tale). Upon removing the MaxiJets, I picked off several Stomatella, putting them back into the tank. After about 30 minutes (with the MaxiJets sitting in the kitchen sink, rinsed in tap water), I got around to their complete disassembly and cleaning. I found several more of the Stomatella inside the powerheads, and was very surprised to find them still alive.
<Yes, pretty hardy creatures.>
Assuming that following what they had just been through they were almost certainly doomed, I took three of them back to the tank and dropped them into the water anyway.
<Always good to be an optimist.>
Fluid dynamics being as it is, all three floated to the bottom and landed on their backs. They squirmed around for a few seconds trying to right themselves (they are really adept at that when they land on rock), but none were able. Then all three squirreled their heads around and began picking up grains of sand, placing them on their "bellies" (feet), and moved the grains along to the back end of their feet. After doing this with 4-5 grains of sand, they had gained enough weight (apparently) to squirm one more time and roll over, after which they took off on their merry ways. I was pretty amazed -- what a remarkable behavior this was! Is this a great hobby or what??!!
<What a world!!!  Amazing isn't it?!?>
Sorry for the length of this message, and again, thanks so much for all your insight and assistance.
<No apologies please!  Thank you for the kind words and sharing your delightful story!  -Mich>
Kind Regards,
John

Turbo Snail Issues 6/3/06
I had 3 zebra turbo snails. After a couple weeks I now have 1. It went to the back of the tank where I have some algae planted and released black pellet looking things. <Waste pellets, snail poop.> I don't know if its relieving its self or what but its all around it in the sand and on its shell. Hopefully  you know what this is. Thank you for your time. Love the site.
<Chris>

Trouble ID'ing snail and what is it doing exactly?   3/4/06
One of the members of my site has this snail. I think it may be a type of Mitra species.
<Does look like...>
I'm trying to get a positive ID.
<Okay... Mitra mitra... common, and big in HI>
Also, what exactly is it doing?
<Eating or regurgitating a polychaete worm... the bristles knocked off... looks like more of the latter>
I've seen this snail in a normal appearance with a normal foot, but what is this behavior below. Once again, thanks for a great site to help us fellow enthusiasts.
I've attached the 4 pictures, seen pasted below, to be sure you receive them.
Steve
<Thanks. Bob Fenner>

Gas-passing Snail..? More Likely Breeding Behavior Induced by Move 11/12/05
I just, and I mean just, like 1 hour ago upgraded my 60g to a 165g.
<<Tres bon bon.>>
(It has been set up for a week, with it half way filled with water, some live rock and live
sand, and I was doing 5g water switch outs a couple times a day to get both tanks to be the same.) I have one trubo <<Turbo?>> snail, and it was one of the first to go into the tank today. After all the fish transferring was done, I sat down to observe how everyone was getting along.
<<Famously I hope. New digs, and I got to hire movers! Yay.>>
I see the snail on top of the organ pipe coral. (It's on a bare spot, not on any coral-it
died off a little due to ammonia levels, and has been growing back beautifully.) It is standing on its tail, its head up high, not touching anything, and there is more of its body out of the shell than I've ever seen.
<<You mean.. your snail was flashing you???>>
Its antennae are waving more than usual, and near its eyes, there is kind of a lump or pipe or tube (made of its body). The snail starts to lean over, like its shell is pulling it down, but then it straightens up quickly, and a cloud of...something comes out of the tube. 
<<Oh my God! Talk about a "money shot"! Ahem.>>
It keeps doing this. I pushed it back over so it was in its normal position, but the clouds keep coming out, every minute or so.
<<Oh my.. no, I can't, never mind. This is funny.>>
I have been sucking the clouds out, as much as I can, with the turkey baster I use to suck or blow things in the tank (does anyone else use one for this purpose?).
<<Yes, turkey basters are great! So are large animal syringes (if you can get them).>>
Have you ever heard of a snail doing this?
<<Yes. And urchins and fish and birds and bees, if you get my meaning.>>
Is the stuff bad for the tank?
<<Highly doubtful. What I think you've witnessed is some sort of snail ejaculate. Breeding behavior. This is often induced in lots of animals by (you get three guesses here, and the first two don't count).. LARGE WATER CHANGES! Ready for a cigarette yet?>>
I've never heard of a snail poisoning a tank, like sea slugs, cucumbers and other creatures
can, but I don't know, so that's why I'm asking the experts.
<<To quote the Bobster, "Ex-spurts!" No, seriously, snails can "poison" tanks by dying and the following decomposition will, of course, present some pollution, but it is not by any sort of poison or exuded.. umm.. excreta? You're thinking boxfish, sea slug-type poisoning, and I know of no snails that can do that (that hobbyists keep).>>
Thanks!!
<<I should let you know that your snails have a choice, though they should use protection. Tell them that no, their palms won't grow hair, and they won't go blind if they keep doing this, but it's the best way to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Finally, it's ok, but it should be done privately in their own rooms. Marina>> 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

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