Baby snails after Maracyn 2

[BeckyCats]

I used Maracyn 2 in my tank. Two days after one dose, tons of tiny snails appeared out of nowhere. They are tiny white specks. I haven't seen snails in my tank since I had a goldfish who ate them all. It's been over a year since I've seen any snails. I have to assume that there were some dormant eggs in the sand that hatched after the dosing, but why would this happen?

Also, I had a bamboo shrimp that I haven't seen in over a month and which I assumed had died and been eaten by the fish (various tetras and an angelfish). However, today, along with the sudden appearance of the baby snails, the bamboo shrimp appeared out of nowhere. The tank is heavily planted, so obviously it wasn't dead as I assumed, but just hiding. But why did it suddenly come out of hiding?

What in the world is going on? I'm not feeling like I should continue the Maracyn 2 although it says repeatedly that it is safe for invertebrates, but obviously it is doing something to the life in the tank. Has anyone heard of anything like this?

Thanks.

 

[FishGuest5123]

Not sure about the snails but I had a glass shrimp missing for several months and then suddenly appeared. I think they move around at night more. Now I see him every now and then. Crazy!

 

[Colin_T]

snails don't have dormant eggs. If you have actual baby snails, they came from eggs on plants or new snails that were introduced.

are you sure they are baby snails?

what have you added to the tank in the last few weeks?

why are you adding an anti-biotic?

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Hello!

I don’t think they are snails. May I please see a picture?

How long has the tank been setup?

What are your water parameters?

 

[BeckyCats]

Does the above link work? It should take you to a video of what I am calling a snail. It is under my kid's microscope at x4 magnification. In real life it was less than 1mm at its longest point. About the size of a printed period on a page. Smaller maybe. In the video you can see its antenna moving and its shell. In another video you can see the heart beating.

I tried posting a few photos as well but it's harder to see the features.

 

[BeckyCats]

Forgive the quality. These images were captured with a child's microscope and a cell phone camera. I held the camera up to the eye piece, so not exactly professional quality.

There have been no additions to the tank for about 4 months. At that time I added some new fish. Other than that, the only change has been the death of my angelfish 2 weeks ago.

I was treating to try to help one of the tetras who had what looked like fungus on his head. Every other day water changes for about 2 weeks had no effect on it. Now it seems to be partly healing after the Maracyn dosing, but it doesn't look like fungus anymore. Now it looks like a tumor.

Anyway, this is all probably besides the point for this thread. The purpose of this thread is to ask about the snails. I literally have not seen snails in this tank for over a year and suddenly the glass is spotted with little white dots of them. Some are big to see the basic shape with the naked eye, but those were too big to fit in the microscope screen to show you guys. I had to use a tiny one.

 

[BeckyCats]

Hello!

I don’t think they are snails. May I please see a picture?

How long has the tank been setup?

What are your water parameters?

Pictures and video above. Tank is over 3 years old. I'm not at home so cant get exact parameters right now. I'll post later.

 

[Colin_T]

The video was fine and actually quite good.

If the snail? has a reasonably flat shell on its back, then it is not a snail but more likely a freshwater limpet. These pop up sometimes and are harmless. They don't get very big and most are only a couple of mm long.

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Maracyn 2 is an anti-biotic that does not treat fungus or protozoan infections.

If you can post some pictures of the sick fish that clearly show the issue, I will try to identify the problem.

 

[BeckyCats]

Just looked up freshwater aquarium limpets and those appear to be them. Interesting. I'm still confused about how and why they suddenly appeared. Maybe the angelfish was eating them as soon as they got big enough to see, so now that he is gone, there is nothing eating them. Who knows.

I guess I won't freak out about them as according to what I read, they are largely harmless snail-types. The only thing I worry about is whether they will out compete my stiphodon atropurpureus gobies. The gobies eat aufwuchs and algae. They occasionally nibble on algae wafers, but mostly they just eat invisible stuff from all of the surfaces like flat plant leaves, glass, rocks, etc. Should I be worried about it?

I did take a picture of poor tetra with boo-boo noggin earlier today. Until I dosed with maracyn, the bump was all white. I thought it was fungus. Suddenly, it appears to have scales growing over it. It looks a lot like the betta I got a few years ago with lymphocystis. It is one of the new fish I added about 4 months ago. Actually I just remembered that when I added them, I bought some water lettuce at the same time but I forgot about it because it died within days. Maybe the limpets came from the water lettuce and the angelfish kept them under control until he died? He was always pecking at the glass. Maybe that's what he was doing.

Pic of boo-boo noggin fish:

 

[Colin_T]

How long has the tetra had the lump on its head?
Did the lump appear overnight, or did it grow over a few days/ weeks?

It looks like there is blood in the fish's eye.

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If the lump appeared overnight, then it is not a tumour. Tumours take weeks or months to grow to that size. It doesn't look like a cyst, which take a few days to weeks to grow that big.

If the fish was attacked by something, it might have become inflamed and developed a bacterial and or fungal infection, which made it worse.

If it's responding to the Maracyn, keep using it for a couple of weeks and see how it goes.
Maracyn can kill filter bacteria so monitor the ammonia and nitrite levels and do big water changes and gravel clean the substrate before re-treating the tank.

 

[BeckyCats]

The lump took several days to get that size. Maybe a week. I think I'll set up a sick tank for her. I dont want to kill my biological filter in this tank.

The only thing large enough to have attacked her was the angelfish and he was never aggressive. She's the largest tetra by far. In fact, the largest fish in the tank now that angelfish is dead. I read that lots of fish have lymphocystis but their immune systems fight it off. Stress can weaken their immune systems and allow it to flare up. When I got the tetras, I also got some cardinal tetras but they were all sick. None survived. All the head and tail light tetras survived though. She's one of the latter. No blood in her eyes. Just natural red coloration. They have red on the upper half.

I don't have gravel. The substrate is sand. The gobies partially bury themselves in it and make little burrows in it next to the large rock-decoration. They are my favorite fish ever! So adorable. <3

 

[BeckyCats]

By the way, thank you for helping me figure this stuff out!

 

[Colin_T]

I don't think it's a tumour or cyst, and it is not Lymphocystis.

I would say the fish damaged its head somehow, it might have panicked during the night and hit something in the tank. In turn, that has become infected and it has a swollen sore on its head.

A quarantine/ hospital tank will allow you to treat the fish without killing off the filter in the main tank. You will probably use less medication in a quarantine tank because they are normally smaller than the main display tank.

If you get any new fish later on, you should quarantine them for at least 2 (preferably 4) weeks before adding them to the main tank.

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To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.
When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "How To Tips" at the top of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working.

Before treating, wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

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Gobies are cool fish