Snail and hermit lifespans

[naesco]

Originally Posted by daplatapus

Tanks are a 77 gal and 20 gal tied into a common 150 gal sump. Approx 150 lbs of live rock. I've never really had an end population I wanted to reach of either snails or hermits, just wanted a good size clean up crew. But life and work and side projects got me so consumed I started forgetting to just sitting down and watch the tank.

I never noticed until the last few days when I've made a concerted effort to clean up my tank of some algae that's been driving me crazy that there's very little clean up crew left. Trying to figure where they've all gone...

I think there is a couple of things at play here.

1. You probably added too many snails and hermits in the beginning and they starved to death. A couple of hermits, primarily predators, is enough for a tank your size. When there is little food for the hermits they can attack the snails.
2. If you did not have a very slow drip acclimatization for the snails they would be injured and die. Ya, they are juat snails but they have a complex system that is affected by saliinity, temperature and water quality.
3. If you tank took a bit of a downhill trend for a while, this might affect them.

Many new reefers fall victem to the 'I need a CUC kit' with the result that too many or the wrong inverts are provided that eventually die polluting the tank.