New Trochus Snails Died Within 2 Days?

[magicjosh]

I don't have any CUC for algae so I picked up 4 trochus snails and a conch from my LFS on Saturday. I got these because my tank has been dealing with a bunch of brown algae lately.

Within 48 hours 3/4 were dead, and the last one is barely alive right now (won't eat, constantly flips on side and doesn't move).

I have test kits for ammonia, nitrate, phosphate and alkalinity and all of them were within normal ranges except for nitrate which is 0 (which is probably due to and causing all my algae). Temp is at a constant 78F and salinity has remained at 34 PPT. I temp acclimated the snails for 30 minutes, then dripped for another 30 minutes before placing into the tank.

Obviously it concerns me that all of the trochus snails died so fast. However, everything else in the tank is doing fine including the conch I bought and a 1 month old nassarius snail.

Is there anything else I'm missing that could have killed off the trochus snails only?

 

[NeutronMan]

Do you have Dinos in your tank? I think that they can kill your CUC if they eat them due to toxicity.

-Matt

 

[magicjosh]

Do you have Dinos in your tank? I think that they can kill your CUC if they eat them due to toxicity.

-Matt

I've briefly tested the brown algae by blowing a turkey baster on it, and it dispersed into a bunch of dust and wasn't slimy. It also doesn't disappear at night so I don't think its dinos.

Would the dinos also kill the conch. Because whatever the brown algae is, he has been eating it like a lawnmower the past few days and appears fine.

 

[UMALUM]

A picture of the algae in question would help.

 

[magicjosh]

A picture of the algae in question would help.

 

[slingfox]

That sounds and looks like dinos to me. When I had dinos jn my tank, I put Trochus snails on the sand and they writhed around like crazy and all died within a day. The dinos killed pretty much all of my CUC other than conch and tuxedo urchin. Hermit crabs also seem to do okay with dinos. After I would do a heavy scrub and siphoning of the dinos form the rock and sand paired with a water change my few surviving CUC would appear and move all around the tank.

 

[Solo McReefer]

Diatoms are dusty, no bubbles

Dinos are stringy and and snot like, with bubbles

 

[carri10]

I don't know what salinity they came in, but I have found, with inverts, you need to go real slow on salinity acclimatisation. I lost a batch due to doing it in half an hour. The next batch, I put them in a bucket below the level of my sump/tank and had a small airline tube that I got a siphon going with. I then knotted the tube so that only a drip every second or so was coming out. I then left it for a few hours. Seemed to work well.

 

[magicjosh]

this post is a bit older, but I’ve confirmed via a microscope that it’s Dino’s

 

[TeeJay87]

this post is a bit older, but I’ve confirmed via a microscope that it’s Dino’s

Thanks for sharing. I didn’t realize Dinos could look so similar to Diatoms.

 

[Solo McReefer]

Trochus Croakus

 

[magicjosh]

Thanks for sharing. I didn’t realize Dinos could look so similar to Diatoms.

I ended up having the small cell amphidinium variant, which goes into the sand bed and not the water column. Maybe that’s why it didn’t look so snotty?

Anyways was able to eradicate upping the nutrients, dosing hydrogen peroxide and silicates.

Hopefully this helps anyone else stumbling across this!

 

[BristleWormHater]

30mins is not enough acclimation for inverts. I do 2 hours.