Snails turning white

[Alesha]

I just love ram's horn snails. They are cute and sort of nerdy-looking. In my mind they all wear black-rimmed glasses and hum to themselves as they go about their day. 

We have maaaaany of them in our 20 gallon. Some of the bigger ones have started to turn white. We keep a Wondershell in the tank at all times, and they have to be replaced fairly quickly (3-4 weeks).

We have super hard water here (the GH fluctuates from 200 - over 300) and my KH tends to drop to 0 if we don't add Seachem Alkaline Buffer to the tank. (It doesn't have crushed coral yet.) We do 25% water changes when we need to. Our pH runs 6.2-7.0. When it drops, I know we need to do a water change and add more buffer.

Any advice on why the snails are turning white and what we can do to help?

[Alexa]

Since there are so many, they may be out-competing each other for the minerals. I see you have plants too, which can take up more minerals than you would expect.

I love my rams horns too, they are so cute 🙂 whenever I see white shells or pitting I throw in an extra wonder shell. They also get crushed up crab cuisine/shrimp pellets from time to time.

Do your snails eat foods with calcium?

[gcalberto]

43 minutes ago, akconklin said:

I just love ram's horn snails. They are cute and sort of nerdy-looking. In my mind they all wear black-rimmed glasses and hum to themselves as they go about their day. 

We have maaaaany of them in our 20 gallon. Some of the bigger ones have started to turn white. We keep a Wondershell in the tank at all times, and they have to be replaced fairly quickly (3-4 weeks).

We have super hard water here (the GH fluctuates from 200 - over 300) and my KH tends to drop to 0 if we don't add Seachem Alkaline Buffer to the tank. (It doesn't have crushed coral yet.) We do 25% water changes when we need to. Our pH runs 6.2-7.0. When it drops, I know we need to do a water change and add more buffer.

Any advice on why the snails are turning white and what we can do to help?

They are probably turning white due to advanced age and calcium deficiency. You could try putting crushed coral in the tank and feed them calcium rich foods. As I just commented on another topic, I feed mine kale, which is supposed to have a lot of calcium (never had calcium and never had this shell issue) . I boil a big amount for around 3 minutes and then freze it. I then dump a pinch or two every couple of days. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by gcalberto

[Alesha]

2 minutes ago, Alexa said:

Do your snails eat foods with calcium?

Hmmm...good question. I feed Xtreme krill flakes, floating pellets and Fluval Bug Bites. All of those have calcium in the ingredients.

[ForestJenn]

3 hours ago, akconklin said:

Hmmm...good question. I feed Xtreme krill flakes, floating pellets and Fluval Bug Bites. All of those have calcium in the ingredients.

I was just reading up on this because we started up a shrimp tank.  If you want to start feeding vegetables it looks like Kale is far and away the best bet, but spinach, broccoli and green beans are good sources of calcium too.   I don't normally blanch veggies before putting them in a fish tank, but it shrimp may prefer the blanched vegetables over raw.    

[TheDukeAnumber1]

I live on a well with hard water and had this exact same issue and couldn't get it to stop no matter what foods I fed or what water additives I used, wonder shell didn't fix it for me either. What finally worked was when I tried switching over to aragonite substrate. The problem completely stopped after that.

[Alesha]

29 minutes ago, TheDukeAnumber1 said:

I live on a well with hard water and had this exact same issue and couldn't get it to stop no matter what foods I fed or what water additives I used, wonder shell didn't fix it for me either. What finally worked was when I tried switching over to aragonite substrate. The problem completely stopped after that.

Very interesting! Thanks for letting me know what worked for you. I'll look into it. 

[Seized]

Sounds like a lack of calcium. Add in some wondershells of some crushed coral and maybe even feed them some tums.

[Speakeasy]

This is my snail breeding tub...about 10 gallons with crushed coral undergravel filter, super wonder shell and zoo med banquet block to hes supplement dietary calcium. Even still I have some shell erosion on my older snails....granted that many snails in 10 gallon is an extreme but you can see how tough it is to keep their shells from eroding 

[Alesha]

6 minutes ago, Speakeasy said:

This is my snail breeding tub...about 10 gallons with crushed coral undergravel filter, super wonder shell and zoo med banquet block to hes supplement dietary calcium. Even still I have some shell erosion on my older snails....granted that many snails in 10 gallon is an extreme but you can see how tough it is to keep their shells from eroding 

Yes, ok. That makes sense! There are so many needing the calcium, you have to provide really high levels. Thanks for the info. That makes perfect sense now.