Mystery Snails and Shrimp

[Jojo]

I have a few mystery snails and shrimp.  I purchased my first golden mystery snail at local pet store on May 08, 2021.  I put it in a 36 gal planted tank.  The snail was very active for a few weeks and then began to just not move at the bottom of the tank and come out a little bit, but never moved again. A few weeks later, I purchased 2 more snails at a different local pet store: a blue mystery snail and an ivory snail, and the same thing has happened were both snails were very active and then now they are not moving at all. I put a wonder shell in the tank last night, just in case I don't have enough calcium in the tank. I do have some brown/green algae growing in my tank as well. I can't seem to keep Ghost Shrimp alive in my tank either. What am I doing wrong?

 

My tank tests were taken last night.

Results:

GH:13

KH:6

Copper:0

PH:8

Ammonia:0

Nitrite:0

Nitrate:0

TDS:1357

Temp:77

 

Thanks in advance.

[laritheloud]

Okay, so I had an issue where I purchased a blue snail from a petsmart, and he hardly moved for a week. It turned out he was healing from conditions in the pet store, and once I moved him to my flourishing display after a two week quarantine he started to thrive.

For your case... is your tank cycled? I see you have a zero nitrate reading, and typically you see a nitrate reading if your tank is fully cycled. Your TDS is high, but I don't have a basis for comparison for that and can't advise you on whether that matters or not.

[Guppysnail]

Mystery snails need food. They cannot survive on algae and left over fish food. They need veggies.  Steamed green beans are a favorite of all mine. You can use NO SALT ADDED canned. Either French cur or open them longways so they can get the meat. I weigh mine down in their food dish with plant weights. You can weigh them down with any aquarium safe object. Broccoli stems kale cucumber zucchini mine also love baby carrots all steamed. They also need algae wafers for vitamins and balanced diet. They eat ALOT. try 1 green bean and you will see it will be gone in 12 hours once they realize it is food. Pet stores never tell people about this stuff don’t feel bad. They are good fish food cleanup crew and maybe mine are just spoiled or lazy but they do terrible at algae control.

also if you have ever used a copper based medicine it will leach out for years is my understanding which will kill them. 

I have zero knowledge of ghost shrimp care only neocaridina 

hope that helps...

Edited June 11, 2021 by Guppysnail

[RyanU]

Something else you can use to feed is Snello. I made my own from this recipe

https://steemit.com/snails/@snailshack/for-the-aquatic-snail-keeper-snello-recipe 

It makes quite a lot and my two snails will eat an entire 3/4 × 3/4 ×1/4 square in about an hour and a half. 

[laritheloud]

I didn't even consider the food part, lol! Yes, definitely feed your snails. Mine love zucchini, spinach, green beans, snello, repashy of all flavors. I have some Shrimp King shrimp pellets they also eat along with the shrimp.

[Jojo]

Do you have to cook the food for them or just wash it and drop it in?

[eatyourpeas]

On 6/11/2021 at 10:52 AM, Jojo said:

Do you have to cook the food for them or just wash it and drop it in?

Blanching the leafy greens will help them sink. 🙂

[Jojo]

On 6/11/2021 at 10:00 AM, laritheloud said:

Okay, so I had an issue where I purchased a blue snail from a petsmart, and he hardly moved for a week. It turned out he was healing from conditions in the pet store, and once I moved him to my flourishing display after a two week quarantine he started to thrive.

For your case... is your tank cycled? I see you have a zero nitrate reading, and typically you see a nitrate reading if your tank is fully cycled. Your TDS is high, but I don't have a basis for comparison for that and can't advise you on whether that matters or not.

It is a newer tank within the setup within the last few months.

[Guppysnail]

I eat tons of steamed veggies so I just use those. Don’t use salt or oil in your steaming water. I do plant weights you can use any aquarium safe object to sink them. I prefer they stay in the food dish for easy retrieval of leftovers...there seldom is any though. Their digestive system is incredibly inefficient that is why they must constantly eat. I just change out my veggies every 12 hours or add new if they are gone. I have time for extra tank maintenance so I don’t worry about excess poo.  My hubby calls it poop patrol and I’m the professional pooper scooper ROFL

Edited June 13, 2021 by Guppysnail

[Guppysnail]

On 6/11/2021 at 2:53 PM, Jojo said:

It is a newer tank within the setup within the last few months.

That is definitely not going to have enough. They are omnivores so need proteins fats veggies vitamins in them. 

[NanoNano]

A couple of questions and thoughts:

* What substrate are you using?  I've had snails and shrimp struggle with some of the cheaper pet store brand gravel that's coated with epoxy to give it a uniform color.  My hunch is that the epoxy either off gasses something or small granules come loose and get ingested by bottom dwellers foraging off of it.

* What is your gravel cleaning routine?  There's a huge focus in the hobby on water chemistry (because you can get almost instant result both with tests and dumping chemicals into the water column to change it) but little knowledge sharing and/or focus on water biology.  Waste left in the substrate will encourage the growth of "bad bacteria" that can make aquatic creatures sick either through direct bacterial attack or by waste products produced by the bacteria.  If da intermetz is correct (big if),  it takes "good" nitrifying bacteria 3-4 times the amount of time to double their population than it does for "bad" bacteria.  You want/need to be assisting your good bacteria by vacuuming your substrate and removing potential food sources for the bad bacteria.  I "spot clean" with a turkey baster between vacuuming at weekly water change time.

* I agree with supplemental feeding as well.  I use both veggies and commercial Sera shrimp pellets which every species of snail and shrimp I've had seems to eat with some degree of enthusiasm.

*  My personal opinion is that there's a lot of "not so robust" populations of Mystery Snails and Ghost shrimp out there right now.  In fairness,  my local chain advertises ghost shrimp as "feeder shrimp",  pretty much setting expectations that they'll survive to the next mealtime- after that they're living on  bonus time.  Shipping issues and the recent surge of growth in the hobby have both constrained supply of aquatic creatures and lead to some stores (and big chains) sourcing from new breeders- sometimes rank amateurs that simply bought two of something (perhaps already weak, diseased,  and/or overbred) at retail, managed to get them to reproduce, and boom were a business.  Maintaining genetic diversity is extremely important in captive bred populations and I think things are "slipping" on that right now- especially in invert populations.  As a result, for me it's worth paying an upcharge (sometimes hefty) to buy from stock that can be traced back to being raised by a professional large scale breeder.

Edited June 13, 2021 by NanoNano
Fixed some bad choices made by spellchecker

[NanoNano]

One other thing I'd think about is PH. You list your PH at 8.0 which is at the upper end of the "comfort range" for many aquatic creatures (I have the opposite problem with a PH that often struggles to stay above 7.0).  I've noticed that inverts in particular can often be lethargic and not so interested in foraging (sometimes for weeks) while they acclimate themselves to my water's PH.

[GameCzar]

Question fellow snail enthusiasts, I have some no salt added canned green beans, do I need to microwave them a bit and let them cool before feeding?

 

[NanoNano]

If they're precooked and from a newly opened can,  I would rinse them and feed without heating.  I always give any fresh veggies quick soak in boiling water from the teapot to dispatch any surface bacteria and soften them slightly.  I also always crush the "seed" parts of the bean before putting it in the tank as the membrane on them can be tough for shrimp and snails to get through.

[GameCzar]

On 6/13/2021 at 1:32 PM, NanoNano said:

If they're precooked and from a newly opened can,  I would rinse them and feed without heating.  I always give any fresh veggies quick soak in boiling water from the teapot to dispatch any surface bacteria and soften them slightly.  I also always crush the "seed" parts of the bean before putting it in the tank as the membrane on them can be tough for shrimp and snails to get through.

Thanks NanoNano! 

[Guppysnail]

On 6/13/2021 at 1:49 PM, GameCzar said:

Question fellow snail enthusiasts, I have some no salt added canned green beans, do I need to microwave them a bit and let them cool before feeding?

 

Nope open rinse use I use French cut or open to the meat  🙂

Edited June 13, 2021 by Guppysnail

[Guppysnail]

@NanoNanoi mirror your sentiments on gravel vac. I couldn't have said it better. The negative bacteria gets out of vontrol eventually.  I also hate adding anything but conditioner. Bought easy green used it once by that evening i was so stressed about my little critters kidneys and bladder working extra to process the stuff even though it is safe i did large water changes on all of them.