Is my snail dead?

[Alexander1312]

I have a large baseball size snail which has not moved for a couple of days.

Its foot is entirely retracted.

I am worried to keep a dead snail in the tank releasing all types of ammonium and potentially phosphate, I assume.

The tank size is around 150 gallons.

How do I know it is dead or just dormant?

 

[Rob A]

Pick it up and smell it ...you'll know

 

[commod0re]

If you have crabs and/or shrimp they will take care of it well before it’s an ammonia problem

 

[Alexander1312]

Smell test is indeed the most effective.

After several days, the snail was still retracted, and I did the smell test.

Unfortunately, it smelled very bad.

My assumption that a dead snail is not able to retract is therefore wrong.

I do not normally spend a ton of time about my clean up crew, but this snail was very large, hence my concern.

 

[code4]

Sad to lose such a snail. I find them to be very interesting.