Salt Water Graveyard

If your water quality is in fact top notch then the only thing you can do is try a longer acclimation process. I know that snails are not teribly hardy and your clean up crew will need to be replenished from time to time but if they are dieing that fast you must have an issue somewere. A possible rapid shift in ph temp or salinty could cause a problem. If your tank has algea growth there should be enough food for them.
One more thought. Is there a fish or other critter in there possibly eating them?

In my mind fluctuating pH and alkalinity are killers to snails.  Quite odd timing for you to ask this, I just finished an article on this very question.

Adam

How do novice reefers keep PH and Alk stable, without auto top-off, CA reactor etc? I am pretty sporatic when dosing Kalk and Super buffer. I wonder if this has lead to the snail demise.

I agree with Adam, et. al.
The ability of the snail to use calcium. That's what proper alk does. I have more snails/gallon in my 75 gal tank than anyone I know of. There is hardly a death. After 4 months I may have lost 5 out of about 175 snails. It's the effort I put into nightime dosing of KW and the occassional addition of some buffer that seems to do the job. Every snail has at least 3/8 inch of new shell growth. You can tell because there is always pure white (or black) new shell on each one.

Jamison, feel free to stop by sometime. Just call as you're passing by Bountiful/Centerville.

lots of daily algae growth to eat doesn't hurt none either

Hello everyone,

How do novice reefers keep PH and Alk stable, without auto top-off, CA reactor etc?

I add fresh water during the day and buffer at night.


Beyond that, IMO people grossly exaggerate the number of snail and/or crabs needed for a reef tank.

FWIW, I have less than 50 snails (and no crabs) for about 170 gallons of water. None of them have died and I'm happy with algae control.

Finally, if you do decide to add more snails or crabs, do it slowly. Just add a couple at a time until your algae control is where you want it.

HTH,
Chris

I had a similar problem...lots of snail/crab death.  Monitor your pH fluctuations when adding buffer and kalk.  Earlier in the day I replied to Marks P's post entitled "Help" which talks about adding buffer first then kalk.  I just bought a top off set up but haven't installed it...it won't maintain pH, Ca and Alkalinity though and I will still have to add/adjust those on my own. 

I usually add the buffer a couple of hours before I add my kalk.  Start adding kalk after the lights turn off, which is when the aquarium ph starts to drop.  By adding kalk drip-wise at the appropriate concentration, I am able to maintain a constant pH through the night with the resulting pH increase occuring during the following daytime hours.

Since employing these procedures, I haven't lost many snails, fish or corals.  In fact I have just noticed that I have had some snails reproducing in my tank.  Actually, I haven't 'seen' them reproducing, just the resulting snail babies which are about 1/2 the size of a pea.

John

John

yaaaay!!        Do we have an icon with his little fingers crossed?  

Articles on what?  I've written many so let me know what you are looking for.  I'm assuming since it is in this post that you are asking about an article on invertebrates and how they can tell you about the health of your tank.

I have an article on that, but it won't be published for about 6 more weeks.  I'll let you know when it comes out.

Adam

I don't think I personally have any articles in that area.  None that come to mind.  I'll have to search around for some articles by others in that area.

Adam
ps- I don't think of xenia as a low light coral, and feeding is certainly the key to the proposed tank