Ok where did they come from?

F

fractionalguy

AC Members
Sep 13, 2000
17
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0
Manteca, CA, USA
I am in the process of cycling my 135 gal fw to a saltwater FOWLR, for a little over a week.
The other day I noticed a few small snails in my overflows.
I didn't notice them before when I had my FW African setup, and usually wouldn't since those fish love to eat snails and anything else they can find.
Anyways, very strange since I haven't introduced anything new to the tank except for the Oceanic Salt.
The snails are very small with cone shaped shells. Any idea what gives?
For now I am only keeping some of the tufa rock from my old setup as a base,
adding two Hagen 4000 powerheads, and a Euroreef CS6-2 skimmer.
I had crushed coral so am keeping it and will add live sand to it after the cycle along with live rock.
I am using the shrimp method for cycling my tank.
The only other leftover I am using is the Flistar XP3 with only the sponges.My readings so far are
SG 32ppl between 1.023 and 1.024
amonia .25
nitrite .25
ph 8.2
Also started a quarantine tank 10 gal at the same time and am going to keep the SG much lower than my home tank, approx. 1.010-1.012.
Any advice for me? thanks FG
 
A hyposalinity quarantine tank is very good for curing bony fish of some ailments, but you don't want to keep it at 1.010 as a normal thing. Keep it at the same salinity as your tank, then slowly lower the salinity after putting a fish in until it is about 1.009. (Use fresh water for water changes, 12 hours apart.) When you are ready to tank the fish out use water from your tank for water changes until the salinity is close enough to transfer the fish. Be aware that the life cycle for some parasites can allow them to survive up to a max of 6 weeks without a fish to prey on.

You have ammonia and nitrite listed. Are you also checking the third step, nitrate?

If you are going for a deep sand bed, I wouldn't have more than 25% of it be the crushed coral, personally.

Maybe the snails are brackish? Are there brackish snails? :confused:

Otherwise, it sounds like you are started down the right track according to all I've read. Just be forewarned that salt is different from fresh in several ways. ;) I think a lot of FW veterans are surprised by the algae cycle after the ammonia cycle, amongst other things.

I'm still moderately new myself, but you can't ask a dumb question or read too much for this hobby, it seems. :)
 
I'm wondering if they're malaysian trumpet snails that were happily living in the substrate before they were inundated with saltwater.
 
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