Dead Snails

[joshg]

Hi All,

I have a single betta and 2 large snails in my 5 gallon tank. I went on holiday for a couple of days and when i got back both the snails where dead (the betta was fine). They are covered in this really strange white slimy looking stuff. Has anyone seen this before?

Ammonia levels in the water are around 0.5 and ph is 7

I'll try taking a picture

 

[WILDER]

Was it slime coat off the betta.

 

[joshg]

no the betta had nothing on it that i could see. its a little cloud of white stuff around each of the snails. i can't see it anywhere else in the tank

 

[joshg]

Here is a picture. Any ideas?

 

[FrAnK3333]

How old is your tank? Snails eat algue and if there is none they will die. Plus betta like to eat snails.

 

[gale]

did you have salt in your tank? If so, how much? Snails can't tolerate salt much but that wouldn't really explain the white fuzz. I have that on my driftwood but when my betta killed his snail there was no white fuzz at all.

 

[jflowers]

I think your snails just died, they have a very short life span at tropical temps, one year at most. The white fuzz is bacteria feeding off the dead snails, remove them quickly, they can pollute the tank very quickly.

If you get any more, get the small ones. My LFS sells XL ones for £3.00 and small for £1.25. The small ones are a much better buy as you will get 1-2 years from them depending on the temp.

If your temp is over 80c then they will move very quickly, breed very quickly and die very quickly.

How long had you had them? what temp is your tank? And they suffer from bad tank conditions too, so what are the water perameters? Amonia/nitrIte/nitrAte?

Jon