Snails and Hermit Crabs dying!

Dakippy · May 3, 2020

Hello-
In the last week or so, none of my snails have been getting out of their shells and they keep ending up on the sand bed and they look like they are dying. This morning I found one of my red-legged hermit crab dead as well as one of my smaller hermits as well. I have one Mexican Turbo snail, 7-10 Nassarius Snails, 5 Astrea Snails, and 2 margarita snails.
Parameters:
Nitrate: 2.5 ppm
Phosphate: 0 ppm
Anyone have any idea why snails would die in such a massive wave like this?

Sosuke · May 3, 2020

I would raise your nitrates if you want to keep corals, but what are your other params? Ammonia? Nitrites? Ph? How new is the tank and what is the salinity level?

Dakippy · May 3, 2020

Sosuke said:
I would raise your nitrates if you want to keep corals, but what are your other params? Ammonia? Nitrites? Ph? How new is the tank and what is the salinity level?

I meant to type 2.5 ppm for nitrates not 0.25 and I have not tested for ammonia or nitrites in a while because it is a pretty established tank as it has been running for over a year. The salinity level is 1.024 SG

Sosuke · May 3, 2020

Ok your salinity is probably fine for inverts, how long have you had them and is any param fluctuating a lot?

Dakippy · May 3, 2020

Sosuke said:
Ok your salinity is probably fine for inverts, how long have you had them and is any param fluctuating a lot?

I’ve had most of them for as long as I’ve had the tank but I added 3 new ones because others were dying. I thought the old snails were dying because of age but after 2 of the new ones died I knew there was an issue. The only 2 parameters that might be fluctuating are pH and alkalinity because I was dosing to raise my alkalinity but that was a week or so ago.