Turbo Snail

[lil_schmitts]

How hardy are turbo snails? i bought one and brought it home after about a 20 minute drive and dropped it in my tank. i didn't think i needed to let the bag sit in the water and warm up for snails. Do i?

Now he just sit were i dropped him and resfuses to come out.

is it dead?

[Orange Crush]

I don't think that should have killed him. Stunned him maybe, but not killed him. Snails are fairly sensitive.

 

Turbos can, at times, stay in one place for quite a while. Is he attached to the rock or anything? If so no worries.

 

He's not upside down, is he? Turbos can't flip themselves.

 

When in doubt, acclimate.

[tinyreef]

hmm, snails are actually one of the most touchy of common livestock. i always acclimate everything, no matter the time or distance of travel involved but for snails i double the time i usually allot myself.

 

i switched to doubling the time after espi and i had discussed acclimating one time. his thoughts/experience was that snails transship the poorest (on average, i guess). ever since then i've used the double-time (about 1-1/2 hours or 2x bag volume, rough estimates). my survival rates since then for snails has been about 90+% (not including predation) versus around 50% in the past.

 

some (most?) turbos are from temperate waters. higher temps cause them to be sluggish and in the long-term, death. imo you should try to always acclimate. good luck!

[reefsrule]

Actually, if you just dropped him in without acclimation I would say he could die with all the horrible luck I've had with snails. I've only had trochus and nassarius snails that at first I acclimated for 1 hour, then 2, then 4.5, and they all have met their demise. My advice is to acclimate all live animals especially snails. I have found snails to be more sensitive because my hemit crab did fine.

[lil_schmitts]

should i just leave it in there if it did die to help the cycle along?

[tinyreef]

ooo X) you're still in the cycle? always try to wait until the cycle completes (ammonia and nitrites read zero, and nitrates below 40) before adding anything. actually, for inverts the nitrates should be <20 ime.

 

chances are the lfs won't take it back so you're stuck with it. i wouldn't leave it in there if it dies (but i would wait until it does since it can't go anywhere else). once it croaks i would remove it. rotting snail can supercharge the algae in a nano. :x

 

try hermits after a week. as rules mentioned, they're tougher and more active cleanup crews. more destructive tho. hth

[tylernt]

The good Dr. Ron Shimek wrote a really good article on snails.