well i thnk i might have to cross another LFS off the list...
dunno???

here's the rub:

i've been having problems keeping snails alive longer than a week or so in my 2.5 month old BC29.
have gone through 3 astrea, 5 star astrea, 2 margaritas, 3 turban/tectus, 2 mexican red-foot/norrisia, and currently trying red banded/trochus (after actually finding some).

was being helped by the LFS owner. after got the snails, i asked if he hand any rigid tubing to rig up a drip acclimation setup (as recommended by members here re: my snail problem). at which point i was chided for wanting to do so. he said this was the worst thing i could do and in fact would void the store's replace/return policy. he said this kills more animals than it helps.

his logic???
drip acclimation is important for over-seas or freight shipments -> lots of stress, amonia, waste in the shipping water. in this environment dripping is important so as not to cause more stress.
once the animal is in the LFS, acclimated and in the tank for sale -> dripping is additional stress above and beyond the temp/salinity acclimation. he says it's better to "just get it over with" with a 30-min float for temp and then a few 1/4 in-the-bag water changes every 15 min.

now i'm a noob here...
this guy's got 30 years experience on me... so don't really have a leg to stand on. so i'd appreciate some input on this one. please help me understand

my params:
amonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0.5
dKH 9
Ca 460
Mg 1400
SG 1.025
temp 78-80

Well, first of all, he's got it ass-backwards. There's much greater stress with drip acclimation from long range shipments due to buildup of ammonia (which converts to ammonium under low light/oxygen conditions which isn't quite as harmful, but reconverts to ammonia as soon as you open the bag) and wastes from the long trip.
Hauling a bag from the lfs allows precious little buildup of ammonia or other wastes, so a drip would help equalize salinity changes, particularly for inverts like crabs, shrimp or snails.
I do not drip anymore for corals and fish and have had much success with them, but inverts like shrimp, snails, and crabs I definitely do.
You might want to compare his salinity and yours. A big enough difference could be why you are seeing dieoff of the snails.

I would say that drip acclimation is more important for fish that are being freighted somewhere. I've also been told by my LFS that the only thing you should really drip acclimate are invertebrates (when you purchase something at a local store that is only 10 min away from your place that is). Fish and corals I usually just float in my tank for like 45 min to an hour to let the temp acclimate. This makes sense (at least for me) b/c I buy both my water and fish from the same place. More than likely the salinity and PH are relatively the same and the temp (from my drive home) is probably going to be the only major change (hence the temp acclimation). However, when I have bought cleaner shrimp and other inverts, I do drip acclimate them. While it may be over cautious I don't see how it could be more dangerous to the fish/invert (unless you just take some ridiculously long period of time to do it in). Overall I don't see how drip acclimating would hurt anything.

http://reefcleaners.org/index.php?option=c...7&Itemid=31

i've always removed the snails and inverts from the LFS tank water in the bag, put them in a net and just drop them right into my tank, i never temp or drip aclimate any invert's and have never had an issue keeping them alive, your main tank water is almost always 100% better/ cleaner than whatever the LFS has running through their tanks and IMO it's best to get the inverts out of thier ####ty water ASAP

Now corals i will aclimate for 30 minutes atleast because i feel they take longer to adjust than inverts do, plus when i'm spending 50 bucks for one piece i want to make sure it has the proper time to be saturated with my tanks water and expell the LFS water, so normally i keep half the LFS water and then slowly add mine and remove theirs until 100% of the water is from my tank and then i add the coral

You don't by any crazy chance have any copper plumbing hooked up to your tank do you? I ask because this exact senario was recently uncovered in another thread.

i NEVER drip acclimate. probably the wrost thing you could do in any situation. i always just temp acclimate and put corals, fish, and inverts alike straight into the tank after temp acclimation. oh and +1 to Dhaut and John's writeup.

this seems more logical to me... but what do i know...
all the LFS here (save 1 or 2) run their SG pretty low -> 1.02-ish
i'm shocked every time i bring something home. even re-calibrated my refractometer with RO/DI and a 35 ppt calibration solution that came with to make sure i wasn't seein' things.
i try to keep my tank 1.025-1.026



i feel the same way. but again... what do i know???



nope, no copper.
there's not even copper plumbing in my house -> i'm all PEX

well, it seems the crowd is mixed here too.
and reefcleaners says... just chuck 'em in (thanks, DHaut)
...but...
liveaquaria and bluezoo say -> drip

not being argumentative... just frustrated... anybody else wanna weigh in???
have any suggestions???

I've never drip acclimated anything, and I've had everything from crabs, shrimp, stars, fish, snails, nems, slugs etc... never a problem

I really trust reefcleaners, so I've followed their recommendations for inverts.

Not sure, but I wouldn't think snails would last a week if they were dieing because of poor acclimation. I've read margarita snails are a cold water species and not appropriate for most of our tanks because of this.

Arent you guys forgetting the deciding factor when drip acclimating? Flowrate plays a huge part. If it's expensive, or an invert I'll drip acclimate w/ a high trickle rate.

yeah... i've kinda had that question bouncing around my head as well.
i'm happy to attribute my margarita snail attrition to a warm tank (79-80 F).
however, as far as i own test kits for -> i can't see any parameter issues.
i considered that there simply isn't enough food in the tank (i don't have an algae issue)... but i can't go more than 4-5 days with out mag-floating my glass, so i know it's there.
did put some nori in the tank on a feeding clip, but noting's touched it (it's been in 48hrs).
and there's not any extra competition -> it's just sand, rock, some softies and LPS and the snails in the tank.

should i just stop worring about it???
is 100% success (success = living > 1 month) un-realistic?

i dont drip snails, i just get the temp right and plop them in. Never had a snail die under a month that i noticed, but hermits will gobble one up for its shell from time to time.

your astreas probably died because they cant right themselves. astreas just die in aquariums once they fall over, so that is probably the reason there. high potassium can hurt snails, so can copper, high nitrates and of course rogue crabs and evil fish...wrasses especially. +1 to yardboy, for most species of snails that can handle swings in params, salinity etc...but cannot tolerate ammonia at all. Not all snails are this way, but lots are. best of luck next time around!

(the method he gave you will work just fine, you shouldn't lose any snails with that method, and drip acclimating them is unnecessary for snails for the most part).

Edit - I added in "for snails" in the last sentence. I always drip acclimate fish.

Corals I stopped acclimatizing a long time ago because I do a fw dip of a couple minutes. never had a problem with this and have gotten some nasties off that I never would've seen.

For anything motile I float for temp and use a baster to add tank water/remove bag water every 5 minutes or so for about a half hour.

I have lost a couple of snails after a couple of days but I don't know that any other method would've saved them.

I only temp acclimate corals and fish, and so far I haven't lost a single thing due to poor acclimation. I just do not see the point in leaving live stock in a small bag of stagnant water for longer than they should be.

I had my temp swing too much b/c my biocube hood was always closed. It killed off all my scarlet hermit crabs. Do you have much of a temperature swing?

nothing too drastic.
tank hovers around 78-79.
had a number of 80 days this summer in the unrelenting heat of Houston. been pretty successful with moderating the temperature by opening/closing one or both lids/doors.
but now that its more temperate here... 78-79.

thanks, John

btw...
i'm now down 2 red banded trochus and 2 norrisia from the last batch.
fine one day and chowin' down on the rock/glass and belly up on the sand bed the next... gettin' munched on by bristle worms and the scarlet hermits (post mortem i'm pretty sure -> as thus far all the scarlet hermits have attacked is each other)

i'm cursed

i dont drip aclimate anything coral's go right in and fish and CUC i add a cup of water to the bag and float just to temp aclimate and 30min later in they go. The only fish i have lost are jumper's