adding calcium for snails?

We've been getting a lot of questions about this one recently. Yes, your acidic water is likely the cause of the shell erosion. One of our moderators has written the following article on basic snail care:
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50705&page=1&pp=15

From it, I glean that adding some crushed coral (a common substrate for marine aquaria) will not only raise pH, but also add some hardness to your water. In addition, some folks find it helpful to add liquid calcium drops, also for marine aquaria (useful for coral development). Others suggest dropping a cuttlebone in there, the kind used for caged birds to chew on, and letting the snails graze on that. I suppose the cuttlebone would also start to dissolve into the water, thereby increasing calcium in there as well.

Please DO NOT use chemical pH altering solutions. They are notorious for being ineffective because the ambient conditions in your source water will naturally resist the change. Your pH will only be increased temporarily, but due to the chemistry of your water, swing back to where it naturally wants to be. In the end, the fluctuation in pH is much worse for your aquarium inhabitants. From what I've heard, the crushed coral answer may work better. I don't know about this one firsthand, because I've always lived with very hard and alkaline water.

Hope that helps!

I was just going to suggest talking with tmtpowers. She and I have been working together on those two issues (Ca, pH) for her snails

While I don't currently own snails (my loaches quickly consume any of them before it even becomes an issue), I will start to breed them to feed my loaches and dwarf puffers. But like I said, I am "blessed" with alkaline (pH = 8.0) and hard (GH = 250 ppm, KH = 143 ppm) water. So if anything, I had the opposite concern, that my water was too hard for my fish. But I was reassured by senior members on this forum that a stable pH was much better than adding chemicals to try to force it to change.

BTW, tmtpowers, what was the moderators' sage advice?

Who knew kiwi and lemon would be OK sources of calcium??? In your case, fishmom3, you might want to skip out on tart foods like that, as they are acidic.

Congratulations, to both of you ladies, for being conscientious snail parents. :

i heard you can use alka seltzer, is this true?

uhhh, probably not. it probably contains all kinds of food-grade additives (dyes, flavorings, coloring, preservatives, etc.) that wouldn't be good for your fishies. it would produce CO2 for your plants, tho

plah831 said:

uhhh, probably not. it probably contains all kinds of food-grade additives (dyes, flavorings, coloring, preservatives, etc.) that wouldn't be good for your fishies. it would produce CO2 for your plants, tho

Click to expand...

wait a second, i think it might have been mentioned for plants because of the co2 fizz. haha thanks for clearing that up.

Just an FYI, Crushed coral in your filter will increase both KH and GH (calcium) you need the Kh increase pretty badly (This will bring your pH up)

I'd do some crushed coral right away personally. The crushed coral will dissolve at a rate dependant on pH. In other words, with a low pH (6.2) it will dissolve pretty quickly, with a hgiher pH it dissolves slower. It will quit dissolving at about 7.6-7.8 which is a really nice levrel for snails. If crushed coral won't dissolve at that level, snails shells aren't likely to either.


And not that it matters, but I'm not a moderator on this site
Dave

That's fine, too. Some folks just put it in a filter media bag or some pantyhose and bury it in their gravel or plop it in the tank. This way might be slower, though, than putting it in your filter because of less flow and less surface area exposed to the water.