How hardy are snails?

[Anaxus]

I accedently got a trumpet snail in my tank when I transfered some gravel from a local LFS tank to use during my fishless cycle. Currently the nitrites are around 5ppm, and I add ammonia to 5ppm. He has been in these conditions for almost a week and he seems fine and is growing. Are snails typically this hardy?

[OrionGirl]

Yep. As many can attest, it's sometimes impossible to kill the buggers off without tearing the tank completely down.

Edit: this is not to imply that the conditions are not harming the snail. Rather, they have a rather high tolerance and won't die immediately from the conditions. Think about having a splinter in your thumb. It hurts, you don't like it, but it's not going to kill you, right?

[im4god2]

OnionGirl has it right. :( I noticed one of the little buggers, then two, then more and more and more. I take 2 or 3 of them out of my 10 gallon each afternoon, and they're back in two nights. I'm getting a 55 gallon, and I'll be transferring only the fish. And checking under their fins then. :)

[Anaxus]

I just noticed 2 more today. Are snails bad? I know they eat algae, but will they also eat uneatten food from the fish?

[O-man21]

HA..OnionGirl
it's ORionGirl
anyways.. I fed the snail that came with my plants to my koi..sucked it right down.

[VoodooChild]

Becareful if they do die though. Those things rot like you wouldn't believe, which can really be bad for your tank. You can REALLY smell it too. I agree with the above though. Most people have a problem with too many snails, not trying to keep them alive.

[ChilDawg]

Yeppers, they are pretty hardy...I keep hearing about how hard it is to kill them without the assistance of an escargot-craving loach.

[RENEGADE]

one word: SALT
a snails worst nightmare

[OrionGirl]

Salt will not always kill snails. While it's true that salt directly applied to a snail will kill it quickly, dissolved salt in an aquarium won't have the same effect. To use salt to kill off snails, I think you might end up killing off a bunch of fish as well.

[ChilDawg]

That, and, aren't there snails in BW and the ocean?

[OrionGirl]

There are snails in both environments, but they have specifically adapted to the salinity and won't survive in FW, just as FW snails will perish in strongly brackish or marine conditions. Of course, so will most fish. ;)

[Anaxus]

What about extremely high nitrites? I just found out my nitirites are off the color chart for my test kits. I noticed a few not moving at the bottom, I think the nitirites might have done them in.

[ChilDawg]

And nitrites will do that. Is your tank still in the process of the initial cycling?

[Anaxus]

Yeah ChilDawg, Ammonia goes down to 0ppm from 5ppm in less then 24hrs. I thought the nitrites were going down too because of the test readings were not on the test kits charts and seemed to be between 0 and .25ppm. But valery in another post informed me that my wierd results mean the readings are higher then what the kit was designed for.
Voodoo mentioned they are bad for the tank if they die. I only see two dead ones but I know I had atleast 5. What should I do?

[thom336]

what can you do? as it has been mentioned...they are pretty indistructable buggers. destroy the eggs when they appear, and constantly remove as many as you can. nothing you can do for the dead ones mate...