# Massive snail die off



## colio (Dec 8, 2012)

It has been a hard month for my main tank. This happened a while ago, but i am curious as to possible reasons. I had a large MTS colony in my 65 gallon, and a decent number of ramshorns. 

My snail population crashed. I had added some new fish, including 4 female kribs. At first I thought the kribs were snail murders. But now I am not sure. I have piles of little white rocks on my substrate, which I think are dead snail shells. 

A few MTS, and a few more ramshorns, have survived. I am wondering for any possible reason for the die off. Could it have been the kribs, or a disease carried on the new fish? I am sadly lacking quarantine tank. 

I may populate the tank soon, but I don't want another mass die off. I can't imagine that is good for my tank. 

I did not notice any ammonia spikes associated with the death, or oher water parameter changes.


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## Shrimp Daddy (Mar 30, 2013)

Do you have assassin snails in your tank?


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## colio (Dec 8, 2012)

Shrimp Daddy said:


> Do you have assassin snails in your tank?


Not a single one.

I think the three best possible explanations are:
1 population explosion followed by die off (I don't think this likely)
2 Kribs
3 Something about the tank, paramters, etc, though I don't know what as everything seemed fine.

I guess it is a mystery.


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## ScarletFire (Nov 4, 2012)

If you're still feeding the same amount of food as before you added the new fish, the decreased amount of food for the snails could result in the population crash.


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## coldmantis (Apr 5, 2010)

We are talking about MTS snails right? I have left MTS snails in damp sand in a bucket for a month and they survived. The only time MTS snails died on me is when I used black beauty blasting sand, no inverts survived in that tank. All shrimp, pond snails, ramhorn snails, MTS, apple snails died within a few weeks time.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4


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## malajulinka (Mar 29, 2008)

I had a huge RCS die-off that I've since pinned to the purchase of mothballs to deal with a moth problem in my house (my other hobby is knitting!). I've since switched to pheromone traps, sealed plastic bins, and lavender, with greatly improved success. 

Bug spray, flea spray, etc - most inverts are sensitive to similar poisons. 

I guess it's also possible that the new fish came from a tank that was treated chemically for snails? Not much would hitchhike on the fish, I don't imagine, but if you tipped the bag in, or even got your net wet fishing them out, that might do the trick? No?


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## colio (Dec 8, 2012)

Yes it was MTS. I have read reference to others observing mass die offs. Best I can assume it a contaminate got into the tank and killed them. My ghost shrimp pop dropped a lot to. The MTS survivors are repopulating now, a batch of babies were on my wall last night. 

I don't think I tipped the fish store water into the tank, but now I forget. : p


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