HOW DO YOU PUT SNAILS FROM STORE BAG INTO TANK?

[JonnyRelentless]

Aren't snails usually pretty hardy? I'm thinking about getting some netrina zebra or red ramshorn, but I was hoping they'd be low maintenance.

 

[silentskream]

snails are usually more sensitive than fish.
i can't keep snails i like alive to save my life.. hitchhiking pond snails however.. I have NO problem keeping them alive. argh.

 

[dieselman]

I just toss them into the tank.

 

[mgood86]

Floating to the bottom of the tank won't crack their shells?

 

[Flaringshutter]

Silly people, snails are much hardier than you'd think!

How are you determining they are dead? If they stink or don't pull back when you gently pull on their shell door, they're gone. If they pull back, they're fine.

They could have passed away during shipping, if they weren't packaged correctly, or if you bought them from an LFS they might have already been gone when you picked them out. It sounds like you did your part correctly, so I don't see any reason for them to die in your tank. Very unusual.

You haven't medicated the tank lately, have you?

 

[mgood86]

No meds in the tank. I read somewhere that they shouldn't be transported in plastic bags of water. That they are better off in wet paper and a box because of them having a operculum (sp?) and how they breath etc. I have a 32 minute drive from the store. I don't know.

 

[ThePBM]

snails are hard to kill. i had a tank basically sitting there with no fish, some java moss and hornwort hangin on, i even filled it with untreated tap water. i cleaned out the tank for experimental painting yesterday and snails were still alive in there. they survived in chlorine for 6 weeks. they were a little bit darker than their counterparts in my live tanks.

 

[OhNo123]

I pick them out and drop them into my floating java moss . Sometimes they seem like they are dead. I had a snail that didn't come out for 10 minutes.

 

[KidInTheHall]

I've got 2 that I got at seperate times, I just drop them in and they slowly float down to the sandy bottom and it'll be an hour or more before they move anywhere.

 

[Flaringshutter]

No meds in the tank. I read somewhere that they shouldn't be transported in plastic bags of water. That they are better off in wet paper and a box because of them having a operculum (sp?) and how they breath etc. I have a 32 minute drive from the store. I don't know.

Their operculum is simply their shell door. They would be fine in bags of water, since they have gills as well as lungs.
More diagnostics.
Do you keep your tank at an unusually high or low temperature? Temperature shock, though rare, might have done them in.
Do you have any plecos, crayfish, crabs, etc that may have preyed upon them?
Have you recently put in copper piping in the house?
Have you added any new decorations or plants recently?

Let's see if we can narrow this down and figure out what's going on.