New to owning fish and this site

[Elyse84]

Hello all,
I set up a 17.5g tank about a month ago. I have 5 neon tetra, 5 zebra danio and 2 sunburst platty (had 3 till yesterday). I have done a 25% water change each week and appear to have happy fish. Randomly 1 platty was dead when i got home yesterday before i was able to perform my weekly water change and i have noticed a few snail looking things in my tank. I treat the water that I put in 24 hours before tue change with stability and dechlorinate. Any ideas what these things are and where they could have come from?

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

The things in the picture are Ramshorn snails. They probably came in as baby snails or eggs on plants.

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The best thing to do if you ever lose a fish, or if any fish look unwell, is a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate each day until you work out what is going on.

As for doing a 25% water change each week, it is better to do a 50-75% water change each week to dilute nutrients and disease organisms in the water. The fish are fine with bigger water changes as long as the new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank, and the new water is a similar temperature and water chemistry to the tank water.

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re: the platy you just lost. Can you describe what it looked like when dead, eg: did it have flared gills, white patches, cloudy eyes, or anything weird on it?

 

[NickAu]

Rams horns are cool they help keep the tank clean and they come in some nice colors and patterns.

I am getting 2 pinks

 

[Colin_T]

Where are you getting the pink Ramshorn snails from?

I started with the normal dark brown and over a 10 yr period ended up with red, light brown, spotted and striped, which were browns with sections of clear leaving the stripes and spots.

 

[Essjay]

Besides the large ramshorns mentioned in the previous two posts there are also ramshorns that grow no bigger than a few mm or 1/4 inch at most. These are the type that usually arrive with plants, or possibly in the water along with fish, as eggs. They are not a problem, in fact they are an important part of the tank's ecosystem. I have these snails, and the kind called pest/pond/tadpole snails that came into my tanks with plants and as long as I don't over feed the fish, they don't take over the tank. (I also have Malaysian trumpet snails and nerite snails)
Look at the second snail here http://www.fishforums.net/threads/snail-species.75554/


Just leave the snails there, and don't over feed the fish.The snails have nothing to do with the death of the platy.

 

[NickAu]

Where are you getting the pink Ramshorn snails from?

LFS has 6 in a breeder tank, waiting on babies.

Besides the large ramshorns mentioned in the previous two posts there are also ramshorns that grow no bigger than a few mm or 1/4 inch at most. These are the type that usually arrive with plants, or possibly in the water along with fish, as eggs. They are not a problem

Sorry Sue I disagree.

Planorbids, Ramshorn Snails

These seem to be the hardest ones to get rid of. They can reproduce like rabbits and they can do damage to live plants.
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/snail-species.75554/

 

[Essjay]

All I can say is that since I stopped trying to get rid of the small ramshorns many years ago I have not had a population explosion - but I don't over feed my fish - and none of my plants have suffered any damage. Neither do I have trouble with physid snails over running the tank or eating plants. Maybe I just don't have the type of plants they like to eat.
My ramshorns have never grown larger than 5 mm, and I rarely see one that big.