Mystery snail deaths and aquarium GH lower than tap!

[svelez]

Hi everyone,

I have been having the worst luck with keeping mystery snails alive for more than 6 months. At first I thought it might be the temperature - the snails grew super fast and had a lot of shell erosion in 77 degrees F. And then after a few months they all died one by one. So I tried again with a new batch of snails, with the temperature around 75-76 degrees F. I feed them a mix of veggie wafers and Hikari crab cuisine, and they often go for the repashy that I feed my pygmy cories. The water out of my tap is hard (ph 8 to 8.2, GH is 7 dKH, and KH is 11 dKH), so I did not really think there was an issue with lack of calcium. Unfortunately, they are still dying one by one, some with very serious shell erosion, and some did not even grow to full size this time.

So today I decided, out of curiosity, to test the GH and KH in one of the aquariums where I've been repeatedly losing mystery snails. It was exactly one week since I did a 50% water change on this tank. Turns out that, while my ph was still 8, the GH and KH were nearly half of what it is out of the tap!!! GH was around 4 dKH, and KH was 5-6 dKH.

How did this happen?! I do have a fair bit of spider wood, botanicals, and plants in there, along with the mystery snails and a large population of ramshorn snails. Are they just absorbing all the minerals? Could this be why I'm losing the mystery snails? Or do I need to just figure out a better feeding regime for them?

I have a calcium test kit for freshwater on order, so we'll see what that says, but either way, I'm wondering if I should be looking into using something like Seachem Equilibrium or Wonder Shells. I know more frequent water changes might help re-mineralize the water, but the pygmy cories in the tank absolutely hate water change day, and I'd rather not stress them out further with twice weekly water changes.

Any thoughts or feedback are hugely appreciated!

P.S. - I attached a pic of the tank in question. It has been running for 6 months. 0 ammonia 0 nitrite and around 10-15 nitrate.

[Tony s]

I use equilibrium because of ro water. for you, with the two sponge filters. I'm thinking wonder shell is the easiest for you. not the cheapest. the easiest. mostly because it's kind of a set it in and forget it kind of product. I find i am not a fan of adding equilibrium straight to a tank. even in a slurry. there are still minor parts of it that do not dissolve easily and may leave a visible residue. wondershell can hide behind your sponges

[Lennie]

Pretty tank.

Do you buy them as adults? If so, that explains about the short lifespan, as their lifespan is around 1 year anyway.
In my experience, their shell start looking bad when they get old no matter whats the water parameters like and whats their perfect shell looked like as their young version

 You may want to increase the feeding with lots of veggies and snellos. Lav’s snails have great snello recipes

 

Usually, a thin shell growth or shell erosion is an aesthetic problem and a potential danger for being prone to damage. Otherwise, if the snail dont get damaged or shell erosion going deep enough to expose their flesh, I don’t think it is the problem here.

Lastly, the other option to evaluate is your fish in the tank. Fish can be surprisingly bullies towards snails like mysteries and it may be hard to notice

[svelez]

Thank you for the feedback/suggestions! I did not know they had such a short lifespan. A couple of the ones I've bought were already full size, but strangely those are the ones I still have (2 magenta and one jade). It seems when I get them young, they start to grow but then just die one by one, some after only a couple months. So maybe it is lack of quality food and/or something missing in the water.

I only keep my mystery snails with nano fish to avoid bullying, or worse. I have never seen my rosy loaches or pygmy cories bother them. 

[AndreaW]

Hi, I have a tank that Mystery snails don't do well because the KH & GH over time drop lower than our tap water. After all the research and questions the most likely answer was that the driftwood tanins were mitigating the water hardness. As long as I do frequent water changes, crushed coral and wonder shells, I can keep the numbers up where they need to be, but in the end, I decided I was going to let the tank do its thing and forgo the snails for now. Maybe down the road I will try again. None of the fish in the tank seem to be affected by it.

[svelez]

AndreaW thank you for sharing that. I have wondered if that is something I should consider - forgoing the mystery snails all together. I'm sure the pygmy cories in this tank are enjoying the softer water anyways.

I found an article from Fish Lab (https://fishlab.com/aquarium-gh/) where he suggests the GH might become lower because the plants and other residents are absorbing all the minerals, so I still might want to consider adding one of the small wonder shells to give the plants a boost. Although some of them are blooming (buce and anubias), so maybe they are just fine with the regular water changes.

Well, I am certainly learning how much detail there is involved in keeping aquariums! Thanks again.

[cmo1922]

Hello! I'm sorry about your snails!

Regarding your tap vs tank parameters, did you test parameters right out of your tap and from your tank around the same period of time? I ask because if you are using city water, depending on where you live and what time of year it is, you can have fairly different gH/kH levels depending on season and/or source. For example, some cities can utilize different water sources depending on needs, and depending on if you are in the rainy or dry season, you can have harder (dry season) or softer (wet season) water. Always good to know these things so you can periodically test and add a product like equilibrium if needed!

In my experience having fairly hard water with a pH around 7.8, driftwood, leaf litter, active soils etc do very little to alter my water chemistry or pH. I use them to make biofilms for my shrimp, snails and sucker mouth catfish tho!

[svelez]

cmo1922 that is not something I had considered, but yes, I tested the tap water and aquarium water within the same 10 minutes. I'll keep in mind what you said, though. My water source is Lake Ontario, and while the source is always the same lake, I wouldn't be surprised if Lake Ontario's parameters change from time to time.

The only thing I can think of is that the large population of ramshorn snails (which I did NOT want in there but they migrated from another aquarium) and the heavy plant load are absorbing the minerals in the water. Luckily my tap water has such a high KH, so my ph is very steady at 8. I've even tried lowering the ph by adding a bunch of botanicals (leaves, wood, alder cones), and while I get a nice blackwater affect, the ph is always the same.

[cmo1922]

On 4/2/2024 at 7:35 PM, svelez said:

cmo1922 that is not something I had considered, but yes, I tested the tap water and aquarium water within the same 10 minutes. I'll keep in mind what you said, though. My water source is Lake Ontario, and while the source is always the same lake, I wouldn't be surprised if Lake Ontario's parameters change from time to time.

The only thing I can think of is that the large population of ramshorn snails (which I did NOT want in there but they migrated from another aquarium) and the heavy plant load are absorbing the minerals in the water. Luckily my tap water has such a high KH, so my ph is very steady at 8. I've even tried lowering the ph by adding a bunch of botanicals (leaves, wood, alder cones), and while I get a nice blackwater affect, the ph is always the same.

Yes mine can vary from around 12 gH in summer to 16 gH in winter! I wish I had more insight otherwise on why your parameters shift over time! Like AndreaW said I would try a bag of crushed coral in the tank. Something that can release calcium and buffer slowly over time from water change to water change so things stay more consistent for your snails.