OH MY GOD! Poor snail!!!!!

[Ava]

My friend couldn't find his apple snail months ago. Today I went to help him strip down his tank and the following is what we found....

thankfully he's agreed not to keep snails anymore!

 

[pik01]

whoa that's some serious deterioration. Idk if your friend should shy away from snail keeping, though, just better informed

 

[Sounguru]

It depends on if the damage happened after the snail died or was the cause of the snail dying..... I leave my shells in the tanks so the calcium can be reasorbed into the water.

 

[Hollygirl]

I'm surprised your friend didn't detect an ammonia spike. I'm assuming the tank was pretty large and planted?

 

[Lupin]

That's shocking.:thud:

 

[msjinkzd]

I leave empty shells in as well, they all degrade like that over time.

 

[toddnbecka]

Ya, I've seen similar erosion of ramshorn and even MTS shells. Lower pH will cause the shells to deteriorate more quickly. In tanks with crushed coral to buffer the water chemistry shells will remain intact.

 

[petluvr]

I also leave shells in my tank. I must say that the damage to the shell could very well have happened posthumously and that simply having CC as a substrate won't keep shells from deteriorating.

 

[DoctaQ]

also something could have eaten the snail so no spike?

 

[Lupin]

also something could have eaten the snail so no spike?

Either that or the test kits are giving misleading results.