I killed them?

[reefgirl189]

What's a reasonable amount of death to my initial clean up crew? Water parameters are bang-on awesome but I've had 3 or more of my 30 cleaning members die this week for unknown reasons. Are they just gorging themselves to death perhaps? All my corals are growing and loving life, it's just the snails that seem to be dieing.

[christyf5]

How long did you acclimate them for? What kind of snails are they? Do they have anything to eat? How old is your tank?

[Mrfish55]

I think that is normal, snails are prone to getting themselves into fatal situations, ie: getting stuck, falling into corals, predatation, etc. Hermit crabs if you have any are notorious for offing a snail in order to upgrade their home.

[apexifd]

parasites? like pyramid snail??

predators?? like mantis shrimp?

[Nano]

Yeah I have heard snails are touchy in the acclimation department, I myself have only lost one out of my original 5, I think they are touchy because of their soft skin maybe?

[reefwars]

crabs and shrimp molt making it look theres dead bodies arond , hermits kill snails for their shell when the opportunity arrise leaving empty shells....alot of times an empty shell doesnt mean the occupant is dead...if thats the case

[whatcaneyedo]

How old and what size a tank do you have? 30 cleaning members is huge. Unless your tank is massive they might be starving to death.

[AquaticFinatic]

Maybe link your build thread to this? If they are margarita snails I wouldn't worry to much. I never have much luck wih them.

[reefgirl189]

It is a new tank but was finished the initial cycle. 180 gal. I added everyone slowly, over the course of an hour. Floated the bag for the temp adjust, and slowly adding more tank water every 5-10 just like they teach you back in freshwater school.

I added 10 snails at first, all of which survived to my knowledge.

A week later added 15 or so hermits, 10 more snails and two turbo snails. Also about 20 empty shells for future upgrades for the growing hermits.

As far as I can tell they've got plenty of food. No ones going hungry.

I guess some just die. I did notice that all they dead guys are of the trochus or nerite variety and all the Astrae ones that I had only added with the original 10 are doing well.

[Nano]

For future acclimations, Its best to do a drip, you can put them all in a bucket and the use an airline tube to drip the tank water into it, about 5:1 ratio, and for fish about 15-30minutes tops, and snails IME 30++ I did my turbos for 1 1/2 hours. but thats just me! drip acclimation is a great method and I thank many users on here for reminding me of that