Snail Suggestions Please!

[anniebanana267]

I need some suggestions for good snails for crushed coral! They don’t necessarily have to be good for crushed coral, but that they’re compatible with crushed coral, if that makes sense. All the snails I see need sand. 

The more interesting, the better!

thanks in advance 🙂

[Clown79]

Usually for substrates it's nassarius snails, not sure how they would do with crushed coral though.

 

 

[dandelion]

Don’t know about crushed coral either. It’s a rather old school substrate as far as I know? Anyhow if I were you I’d go with nassarius as well like @Clown79 suggested. 

[Clown79]

9 hours ago, dandelion said:

Don’t know about crushed coral either. It’s a rather old school substrate as far as I know? Anyhow if I were you I’d go with nassarius as well like @Clown79 suggested. 

I used it 10yrs ago but relied on myself to keep the substrate clean.

 

I had a bigger grain of salt in my 10g and the nassarius seemed to have a hard time digging into it and staying in it.

 

I'd try 1 nassarius and see how it works out with the crushed coral 

[anniebanana267]

thanks everyone! I'll see if my lfs has any in stock 🙂

[mndfreeze]

Any particular reason you went with crushed coral instead of sand?  CC is notorious for being a nitrate factory and requires you to be on top of keeping it clean.  Nassarius snails won't really help with it, especially if its larger sized CC.  

[anniebanana267]

14 hours ago, mndfreeze said:

Any particular reason you went with crushed coral instead of sand?  CC is notorious for being a nitrate factory and requires you to be on top of keeping it clean.  Nassarius snails won't really help with it, especially if its larger sized CC.  

it's much easier to clean and my sand was always brown. my crabbies are extremely happy with it and Im not so sure about it being a nitrate factory because my nitrates are barely at 10 after 2 weeks last water change, and I don't even have a p.s or anything. 

[anniebanana267]

and yes, it's pretty big crushed coral, full sized small shells in there and little sand dollar things 🙂 i really like it actually. heard so many bad things about it but I'm glad I decided to go with it.

[Clown79]

I used it 10yrs ago.

 

I actually never had problems with it, everyone advised against it. The only pain was sand burrowing creatures.

 

I vacuumed it weekly and never had diatoms, cyano, gha, and the substrate was never really dirty. My nitrates were very low as well.

 

I was just talking about it the other night.

My current tanks have sand.

I've had issues twice with 2 different sands over 3yrs.

 

Diatoms, cyano, gha- only on the sandbeds. That's with weekly vacuuming and cuc to clean it. Still the water comes out dirty.

 

Maybe crushed coral isn't bad if you vacuum it

[mndfreeze]

The key with it really is the maintenance.  With sand you can get a lot of burrowing critters that effectively turn it over and do the work for you, worms, snails, etc, etc.  Crushed coral doesn't have nearly the amount of micro holes capable of holding bacteria and stuff so its less 'filtration', but you have live rock for that anyway so its not a big deal.  Just make sure you stay on top of keeping it clean.  It's when maint starts to lag that your tank will really suffer with it, especially in long term years down the road when areas at the very bottom of it where your vacuum doesn't really get to well start to add up.

 

 

Also, your tank is new, and its normal for your water chemistry to change quite a bit as it ages.  Things like nitrates will stable out as you figure out feeding properly and regular maint, etc.

 

[anniebanana267]

 

On 5/24/2018 at 4:59 PM, Clown79 said:

I used it 10yrs ago.

 

I actually never had problems with it, everyone advised against it. The only pain was sand burrowing creatures.

 

I vacuumed it weekly and never had diatoms, cyano, gha, and the substrate was never really dirty. My nitrates were very low as well.

 

I was just talking about it the other night.

My current tanks have sand.

I've had issues twice with 2 different sands over 3yrs.

 

Diatoms, cyano, gha- only on the sandbeds. That's with weekly vacuuming and cuc to clean it. Still the water comes out dirty.

 

Maybe crushed coral isn't bad if you vacuum it

Yes, I agree with everything. With my sand, no matter how much I vacuumed it, it got the water dirty and within hours it would be completely brown with diatom. The only pain is, like you said, the limit on the critters.

On 5/25/2018 at 12:03 AM, mndfreeze said:

The key with it really is the maintenance.  With sand you can get a lot of burrowing critters that effectively turn it over and do the work for you, worms, snails, etc, etc.  Crushed coral doesn't have nearly the amount of micro holes capable of holding bacteria and stuff so its less 'filtration', but you have live rock for that anyway so its not a big deal.  Just make sure you stay on top of keeping it clean.  It's when maint starts to lag that your tank will really suffer with it, especially in long term years down the road when areas at the very bottom of it where your vacuum doesn't really get to well start to add up.

 

 

Also, your tank is new, and its normal for your water chemistry to change quite a bit as it ages.  Things like nitrates will stable out as you figure out feeding properly and regular maint, etc.

 

Ok, I understand. thank you so much for the tips! 🙂 

[mndfreeze]

That sounds to me like you probably have other issues with the tank like over feeding, or flow or perhaps your water source.  Are you using tap water or RODI water for mixing your salt and topping off?  

 

Generally, new reefers are notoriously bad at over feeding, myself STILL included in this after 8 years of on/off tanking.  Reefs are really nutrient poor in general and go for long periods without food.

 

Good luck! hopefully the CC works better for you then the sand! Just keep it vacuumed and keep up on your water changes and param testing.

[anniebanana267]

10 hours ago, mndfreeze said:

That sounds to me like you probably have other issues with the tank like over feeding, or flow or perhaps your water source.  Are you using tap water or RODI water for mixing your salt and topping off?  

 

Generally, new reefers are notoriously bad at over feeding, myself STILL included in this after 8 years of on/off tanking.  Reefs are really nutrient poor in general and go for long periods without food.

 

Good luck! hopefully the CC works better for you then the sand! Just keep it vacuumed and keep up on your water changes and param testing.

I’m actually not having any issues at all, but thank you for your concern and tips! My post was just asking for suggestions for snails 🙂

[mndfreeze]

Yeah I misread and thought you said you were still having the diatoms and algae problems, not that it went away after you switched.  Good luck!

 

It takes a while for the build up to occur, so don't be surprised if in a few months it suddenly starts getting gross again.  Don't over feed!

😄