Snail Deaths?

[Bettabuddy664]

Hello!
 
Today my blue mystery snail died, he was rotting away and I had to throw him away.
If you look on my page, you can see my other white mystery snail died about a week and a half ago.
 
I was wondering if there is any connection to this death and the previous death, or any wrong water parameters?
 
Parameters:
 
78 Degrees Fahrenheit
6.9 pH
0 Ammonia
0 Nitrite
28 Nitrate
 
No copper or medications right now.
 
Thanks!
 
 

 

[Meeresstille]

Did you feed them now and then some algae wafers, or blanched veggies? Oftentimes snails don't get enough food in a tank!
 
Do you know if you have soft water? Snails will need minerals to grow and maintain their shells. You can add crushed coral to your filter, it will help with that!

 

[Bettabuddy664]

I feed them algae wafers every other day and my water has calcium in it, I put cuttlebone in the water.

 

[BerryAttack]

you cycle your tank?
 
*** 
also i believe that nitrate should be lower then 20ppm because it can be harmful to the fish.. do a water change, make sure no chlorine.. snails are usually very sensitive with that.. well at least mine are .

 

[Skies]

you cycle your tank?
 
*** 
also i believe that nitrate should be lower then 20ppm because it can be harmful to the fish.. do a water change, make sure no chlorine.. snails are usually very sensitive with that.. well at least mine are .

20ppm is a completely normal reading, up to 40ppm is acceptable... however, I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Hmm, sorry to jump into this thread, very interesting though.
My tank is normally shows 40ppm nitrates, and have a number of common snails and 2 assassin snails, all are ok. (as well as RCS). assassins have recently laid eggs so would have thought water params are fine.
Nitrate have spiked to 80ppm before but usually by end of week just before doing water changes anyway.
 
What can you do to lower nitrates?
My tap water normally gives out 20ppm nitrates so changing the water would not make any huge differences TBH, might get it to 20ppm if lucky with huge water change but more likely to stay around 30ppm at best.

 

[Meeresstille]

Hmm, sorry to jump into this thread, very interesting though.
My tank is normally shows 40ppm nitrates, and have a number of common snails and 2 assassin snails, all are ok. (as well as RCS). assassins have recently laid eggs so would have thought water params are fine.
Nitrate have spiked to 80ppm before but usually by end of week just before doing water changes anyway.
 
What can you do to lower nitrates?
My tap water normally gives out 20ppm nitrates so changing the water would not make any huge differences TBH, might get it to 20ppm if lucky with huge water change but more likely to stay around 30ppm at best.

My Nitrates are always around 5. I do have lots of plants, do 50% water change every week and try to get as much fish waste from the substrate as possible, being careful with the planted areas. I dose with fertilizer for the plants as well, especially since the Nitrates are so low. 
With Nitrates coming from your tap you will have a hard time keeping it lower but having it go as high as 80 makes me wonder why it is going so high! 

 

[Ch4rlie]

Like you, i do 40 to 50% water changes every week, trying to get as much waste as possible from gravel, do have quite a few live plants, I have dosed once with root tabs and also have bogwood in the tank as well.
 
So not too sure why nitrates getting fairly high. But having said that, all the shrimps, snails and fish don't seem to be showing any adverse effects.

 

[fm1978]

Just throwing this out there, but, do you have any idea what your TDS is at?
 
It's just that you mentioned Calcium and Cuttlebone - it could have a higher than normal mineral content...

 

[Meeresstille]

Could your tank be overstocked? What size tank do you have and what kind of fish, and how many?