My snails always die

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Kimm87

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Every single time i get snails they die with in just a few days. I dont have anu snails currently but was considering getting 1 for my sons tank but im not sure i want to if its just going to die. I dont think they all starved because i would put food in there for them and would see them eatting and stuff but always after 3 or 4 days id find them fliped over or notice they hadnt moved in a few days and id pull them out and they would stink. Once i left a snail in there for over a week it never moved . im not sure if its somthing im doingnor if the water is killing them or what .
 
It will help if you could name the snail species, and also provide your water parameters (especially GH, the general hardness).
 
They were just basic nerite snails. I'm not sure of the current water hardness because we have moved since the last time we had snails. Our ph is about 7 we have pretty hard water but we have a water softener/ filter in our shower. I know this info doesn't help much
 
They were just basic nerite snails. I'm not sure of the current water hardness because we have moved since the last time we had snails. Our ph is about 7 we have pretty hard water but we have a water softener/ filter in our shower. I know this info doesn't help much

I will leave it for the members with Nerite knowledge to comment on the water, but if it is hard that shouldn't be a problem. The water softener...does the fish tank water pass through this? That could be an issue, as many softeners use sodium chloride (common salt) in exchange for the hard mineral salts (calcium and magnesium) and most freshwater snails do not like salt. One of the Nerite folks can sort this out for you.
 
No idea about nerites but is the tank water quality ok, eg: what is the ammonia, nitrite & nitrate?

The main things that kill aquatic snails are poor water quality like ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and heavy metals like copper.

Running the tap for a minute before collecting water should help flush out any water that might have copper in it from sitting in the water pipes over night.

As Byron mentioned, the water softener might be an issue if you get the tank water through that.

Are you sure the snails are dead and not just upset?
If the water is not good snails will close their operculum (door they use to seal themselves off from the outside world) and sit in the water doing nothing. If you lift a snail out and use a finger nail or a small fine object to try and lift the operculum, the snail should pull it shut and hold it shut. If you can pull the operculum open and the snail comes out it is dead but if it pulls the operculum shut, the snail is alive, but not happy about the water quality.
 
Another line of inquiry worth considering, is the tank a new tank or a second hand tank? If second hand it could have had medications used in it that are harmful to inverts. Or have you yourself used any medications in the tank? Is the tank planted? If so could the plants have been treated with chemicals to kill snails.
 
Lol i havnt had any snails since we moved almost 2 years ago. In our old house we did have metal pipes and pretty bad water so it could have been copper. The tank was a brand new 29g over the course of the 5 or 6 monthI had the tank we intorduced maybe 4 snails they all died with in the first week. The tank before that we got second hand. It came with a snail and several fish, and was a way over stocked 10g with way to many single schooling fish which is why I bought the 29. Those fish had been living like that for well over a year and with in 6 months of me taking them had all died despite me doing constant water quality tests and properly cycling the tank. That and a brand new fish dieing after developing a growth while in quarantine were the reasons I sold the tanks and got out of fish in the first place.
 
I have the same problem with water in Perth, Western Australia. The tap water here is toxic regardless of what the water corporation says. We get a white residue left over after water evaporates and it is not anything I can pick up with a GH or KH test kit and it does not raise the pH.

Our tap water is very soft (GH less than 50ppm) but very alkaline (pH above 8.0).

If it add tap water to methylated spirits (ethyl alcohol/ ethanol) the alcohol goes green. If I add bottled or distilled water to the alcohol it stays clear like it is meant to. I use methy to clean things, not to drink. :drinks:

I did various tests with our tap water and even had the water corp come out and test it too. Their results were the same as mine, basically 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, low GH, no KH and high pH. They also did a chlorine test and found we had 3.5 times the safe level of chlorine in the water. Safe level being no more than 2ppm and ours was 7.5ppm. They said to aerate the water for 24 hours or leave it out in the sun for a few hours to remove the chlorine. That didn't help.

I use to vigorously aerate my water for a week before using it, and I added a dechlorinator at recommended dose rates, and a Rift Lake water conditioner at half strength. My water holding tanks also had undergravel filters in them. This was the only way I could use my tap water on the fish I kept. I had a range of fishes including Australian & New Guinea rainbowfish, various Corydoras, South American and African dwarf cichlids from soft water, and dwarf cichlids from Africa's Rift Lakes. I also had a number of native species that are not available from shops.

Whilst a lot of these fish came from soft water, they died if I did not increase the GH of the water I used. They were fine in the hard water but perished rapidly (within days) if I used soft water. They start breathing heavily and die an hour or so after they started to breath heavily. We put this down to a chemical/s in the water and by increasing the hardness (using the Rift Lake conditioner), the minerals were able to bind with the chemicals and help make them less toxic to adult fish.

I did tests using the same water, (aged for a week with Rift Lake conditioner, etc) and the water killed rainbowfish fry as they emerged from the eggs. So whatever was in my water, and is still in it, is lethal to baby fish, and pretty much anything aquatic. However, by increasing the general hardness to over 200ppm, I was able to keep a variety of adult fishes.

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Depending on how hard your water is, you could try increasing the GH and see if that helps. Alternatively look at reverse osmosis (R/O) units and see about trying that. R/O units do waste a lot of water but they give almost pure water. Another options is to buy a couple of inline filter cartridges and connect them to your tap. The first cartridge can contain a material filter to screen out dirty and sediment, and the second cartridge can have activated carbon in to remove chemicals and heavy metals. The carbon will need to be replaced regularly but it might help.

If you don't have the resources for inline filters, try aerating your tap water in a bucket for a week and have a carbon filter in it. Fill up a large plastic container or bucket, add dechlorinator and aerate vigorously. After 24 hours add a box filter with activated carbon in and leave it to run for a week and then use the water.

Aerating the water and conditioner for 24 hours will get rid of any chlorine in the water and when you add the carbon after that, it can absorb any heavy metals or remaining chemicals from the water. It might help. :)
 
What are you feeding the snails and fish?
What additives/ chemicals are you using? Eg Seachem prime.

Here's an idea.

Do you have an air pump and new never used small sponge filter? Where do you live?


Go out and buy a brand new 4 gallon plastic bucket with a lid, fill it with treated tap water pop in the sponge filter and turn the air pump on, now go out and get a snail and put it in the bucket, NO substrate NO plants just plain old tap treated tap water and see what happens, If the snail lives its not the water.

Because the sponge filter isnt cycled check the water quality daily.

Once we establish the water is fine after about a month we can add a few cups of substrate them plants, Process of elimination.

Or

Have you considered having your water tested by a laboratory? If the water is the actual problem how safe is it to drink?
 
Wow that all seems like alot of work for snails. We have a 3 part water filter on our kitchen sink we dont drink this nasty pond water straight it tastes like a public pool. I may just not get snails
 
My concern is not just that snails die, but if something is killing the snails, it will be harming the fish too. Any chemicals that kill snails quickly will be doing damage to the fish, in particular their kidneys and possibly their heart. If you can figure out what the issue is, it will benefit the fish.

Do you use filtered water for the tank?
If not perhaps try using the filtered water for the fish too.

If tap water is unsafe for you to drink, it is unsafe for fish to live in, ingest, absorb and breathe.
 
Some how it got lost in the post even tho i have mentioned it multiple times these are not current issues. These are past issues i had with snails and fish 2 years ago before i got rid of my tanks and moved. The only tank i kept when we moved was my frog tank and i have had little issue with the frogs. We moved to a totally differnt town with different water from a different water plant. The water here is pretty bad but i dont know the actual levels just that the water is in the low 7 ph range and is pretty hard. We have a 3 stage filter in the kitchen for drinking water i dont think it softens the water much and we have a water softener on the shower. Before we moved we had a machine on our sink that you could adjust the water ph but the filters were very expensive so we dont use it any more.
 
Some how it got lost in the post even tho i have mentioned it multiple times these are not current issues. These are past issues i had with snails and fish 2 years ago before i got rid of my tanks and moved. The only tank i kept when we moved was my frog tank and i have had little issue with the frogs. We moved to a totally differnt town with different water from a different water plant. The water here is pretty bad but i dont know the actual levels just that the water is in the low 7 ph range and is pretty hard. We have a 3 stage filter in the kitchen for drinking water i dont think it softens the water much and we have a water softener on the shower. Before we moved we had a machine on our sink that you could adjust the water ph but the filters were very expensive so we dont use it any more.

Understood, but post #1 did ask for advice currently if you were to get a snail, so all of us are offering suggestions as to possible issues. Diagnosing fish/aquarium issues is often very complicated because the aquatic environment is unique and much more involved than terrestrial, so animals living in the water have much more complex relationships, and are affected much more significantly by any even miniscule aspect of water chemistry or biology. It can take a lot of searching to find the root cause, and even then, interactions within the environment itself can still play into the problem.
 

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