Sick Turbo Snails???

[Kerbash]

Hey,

Does anyone have experience with weird acting snails? Got 3 new turbo snails around 3 weeks ago, but the weird thing is they have been in the exact same spot since I placed them down, two of them will not come out of its shell, the other one does come out but cant stick to anything, are they sick? How do you even deal with that? I have had turbo snails before tank too and they all did fine for years, I know they come from cooler water but right now my tank is hovering around 75 f too.

Not sure is it related or not, but this tank in particular, the clean up crew has been taking a very heavy attrition, since i set it up around 2 years ago. No clue why. Been losing snails and hermits crabs left and right, out of the original 30 snails and 20 hermits crab, Im down to only 1 hermit left no snails. Lost my long time urchin and sea cucumber too for no reason. Didnt really think about it too much until these three new ones acting up.

param
alk 8.0
Cal 410

 

[TokenReefer]

What's your magnesium?

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

I would test for copper as well

 

[Kerbash]

slightly low i think 1180 changed supplement a month ago and didnt noticed the drop

 

[Kerbash]

I would test for copper as well

I just did a ICP test actually and nothing weird turned up. I think cooper was at something like 5 ppb

 

[TokenReefer]

Hmmm. I've only heard of high mg causing issues with snails but yours seems normal/lowish.

Did the larger cuc die all at once or over time? Is the tank super clean? Is there enough for them to eat?

Sorry for more questions

 

[Wasabiroot]

How much algae do you have? It could be a case of simple starvation. Turbos always start to go downhill for me as less food becomes available.
Whatever it is, it is hurting snails and crabs equally, so it would have to be affecting cleanup crew/inverts specifically? What's your salinity? Are other snail species being affected?

 

[TokenReefer]

Great point about salinity. My refractometer fell out of calibration and after recalibration and fixing salinity it's amazing how off my numbers were...

Edit: did the icp give you salinity?

 

[Wasabiroot]

I would prefer using a dedicated copper test over ICP since the margin of error for trace elements on icp tests can be suspect sometimes.

 

[Kerbash]

Hmmm. I've only heard of high mg causing issues with snails but yours seems normal/lowish.

Did the larger cuc die all at once or over time? Is the tank super clean? Is there enough for them to eat?

Sorry for more questions

No worries at all! Thanks for the help. Well, they sorta died off slowly like over the course of a few months, my tank is also definitely not clean lol, brown rocks, turf algea, thats the reason why I got the turbo snails.

How much algae do you have? It could be a case of simple starvation. Turbos always start to go downhill for me as less food becomes available.
Whatever it is, it is hurting snails and crabs equally, so it would have to be affecting cleanup crew/inverts specifically? What's your salinity? Are other snail species being affected?

Yeah I dont know, its really weird not sure why because I have 2 giant clams in the tank too, Deresa and Maxima and they are both doing great.

Here is like a list of inverts that been in my tank and whether or not they died (+ means alive - dead)
+ Maxima clam
+ Deresa clam
+ Cleaner Shrimp
+ Brittle Star (one 3 inch banded brittle star and tons of small ones.)
+ Anemones (Ritteri, BTA, Gigantea)
+ Coral (mix reef)
+ Upside down jellyfish in the fuge
+ Pencil urchin

- Snails (astrea all dead, out of 10 nessarius <3 survived)
- Hermit crabs (one left)
- Pin urchin (been with me for 3 + years but died in this tank)
- Sea cucumber (been with me for 3 + years but MIA in this tank)

Great point about salinity. My refractometer fell out of calibration and after recalibration and fixing salinity it's amazing how off my numbers were...

Edit: did the icp give you salinity?

Yep it was 1.025

 

[Kerbash]

I would prefer using a dedicated copper test over ICP since the margin of error for trace elements on icp tests can be suspect sometimes.

ic ill test it tomorrow then thnx

 

[Wasabiroot]

ic ill test it tomorrow then thnx

Your ICP was still a valuable addition to troubleshooting though!

I'm assuming you don't have dinoflagellates when you say brown rocks, lol. Those can be toxic to small inverts, but then again your clams are fine, which can be sensitive...

5 ppb is not panic level at all, but in the event the actual value is still low when tested again we can maybe rule out copper.
CupriSorb may be something you could try if it tests high. Are you adding any water from the store when you get the snails

 

[Kerbash]

Your ICP was still a valuable addition to troubleshooting though!

Yeah, i did the copper test and nothing is showing up

 

[Sidsreef]

How much algae do you have? It could be a case of simple starvation. Turbos always start to go downhill for me as less food becomes available.
Whatever it is, it is hurting snails and crabs equally, so it would have to be affecting cleanup crew/inverts specifically? What's your salinity? Are other snail species being affected?

I think your turbos are dead bro. I ordered ten snails and like 2 of them died within 48 hours. Little did I know when I ordered them they arrived and we’re racket ball sized. So I can imagine if I had a really bad algae problem they would still be alive. The smaller turbos are still alive and eating just fine but if there isn’t anything for your clean up crew to eat then they will die off. Always have allot to eat when ordering clean up crews to ensure survival. Had a horrible aptasia problem and a peppermint shrimp went ham and a week later that shrimp looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger all beefy from eating.

happy reefing

 

[Kerbash]

I think your turbos are dead bro. I ordered ten snails and like 2 of them died within 48 hours. Little did I know when I ordered them they arrived and we’re racket ball sized. So I can imagine if I had a really bad algae problem they would still be alive. The smaller turbos are still alive and eating just fine but if there isn’t anything for your clean up crew to eat then they will die off. Always have allot to eat when ordering clean up crews to ensure survival. Had a horrible aptasia problem and a peppermint shrimp went ham and a week later that shrimp looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger all beefy from eating.

happy reefing

I actually have an update on the snails, so what happened was they kept sitting there for like 4 more days until I nudge one and realized hes dead. I thought they might be sick so I did a FW dip on the other remaining snail, left him in there for 15 minutes, at first he was closed then around the 10 minute mark he came out of his shell for the first time in weeks and a lot of weird brown thing came out of him. Once I moved him back into the tank he immediately came out of the shell and attached to something, over the next couple of days I started to see him walk and eat like normal. Im starting to think that the reason my snails died might be due to some disease of some sort. No clue though.