Finding a dead snail

[jkhalliday76]

I am starting to think that I have a dead nassarius snail in my tank. I have three. Two of which I've seen the past couple of days and one that has been MIA for about 3-4 days now. I sifted through the sand that I can get at in the front of my tank, but was not able to uncover the little guy. I'm afraid he might be dead and rotting in an inaccessible part of my tank. I've been having some troubles with high nitrates (about 20ppm) lately, and this might be why!?

Any suggestions? Or should I start breaking down the rock :bouncebox

 

[Woodstock]

Do not break down the rock. Instead, do frequent water changes to bring the nitrAtes down to 10ppm or less.

 

[Cougra]

Unless your tank is extremely new, doesn't have enough live rock or is a very small tank a single dead nassarius snail shouldn't alter your water parameters that much. I would look to overfeeding and other means of exporting nutrients to account for the nitrate levels.

Also stirring up the sandbed and disturbing the live rock can release a lot of nutrients that were trapped out into the system.

 

[jkhalliday76]

With my 20 gallon, should I do 5 gallon water changes frequently or less than that?

Thanks Woodstock!

 

[jkhalliday76]

Cougra - I read somewhere that prior to cleaning the tank, I should stir up the sandbed. Am I making a huge mistake doing that? Should I just be siphoning out the desired amount of water and leaving the sand alone? Someone set me straight!

 

[Woodstock]

5 gal water change is a good amount for your tank.

I have a 3-4" sugar sized sand bed. Sometimes during water changes I stir up the top 1/4" and then siphon out any floating debris. I NEVER disturb the bed any deeper.

 

[jkhalliday76]

Ok, gotcha. Thanks for all your help! That's what I've been doing, 5 gallon changes weekly. I'll keep it up and hopefully can get the nitrates down.

 

[Cougra]

I agree with Woodstock, you can stir up the sand bed a LITTLE to get the detritus from the top layers of the sandbed. I do stir my sandbed up as well when cleaning the tank. It does release nutrients back into the tank so a water change right after stirring is defiantely preferable.

Even your 20 Gallon tank should be able to absorb the death of a single snail without too many problems, especially if you have enough live rock and it's been cycled for a few months.

 

[jkhalliday76]

Ok, I have about 25-30 pounds of live rock and the tanks been up since February. So I should be ok there.

Thanks for your help!

 

[gimpy]

Your snail is probably still alive in there somewhere. I would not worry too much about him. You have snails in the sand bed, maybe worms, etc, too (?), then I would not worry about stirring up the sand bed. Let them do their job.

5 gallon water changes once a week (for a 20 gal tank) is great. Keep it up.

Frank

 

[jkhalliday76]

Thanks Gimpy! And he is alive. He's just not as aggressive at feeding time as he once was.

Must be the tap water I am using that is causing the nitrate spikes, any one know if you can buy premixed water online anywhere?

 

[Cougra]

don't buy water, buy an RO unit, it's MUCH more cost effective and you can make as much as you need when you need it.

 

[lcstorc]

shipping on the water would be killer as well. Buy an ro/di and salt and make your own. Lots cheaper and once you get the hang of it, it is really easy. Just takes some patience.

 

[burning2nd]

agreed, single nas snail isnt gonna rase your levels like that. IVe lost one or 2 of thos cool "little antenna dudes" over the days, but it never made a diffrence some time your will have a eazyer time finding your hermits gatherd around for a snail cook out.

i stirr it up (sand) from time to time. useally brings them right up, or when i feed then they will deffintly surface

Did you say tap water?
www.thefilterguys.biz

oh, one more thing, dont know but just comeing to a uneducated guess, if your useing tap water. and your doing 5 gal water changes thats a 1/4 of the tank you could be puting the no2 and no3 right in to the the water. I might have misunderstood this tho

 

[Stalwart]

If you have any type of hermit or other crabs, that dead snail wont rot anyway, it will be lunch in short order.