# Snails a sign of no nitrite/ammonia?



## erijnal (Apr 5, 2006)

Just brought home my CPDs from the dorms, and I'm about to re-introduce them to my home tank. The thing is, about 2-3 weeks ago, I completely broke the tank down and started it up with slow growers. The filter media was not replaced during the breakdown, which took about 8 hours, but the substrate was boiled and put back in.

My main concern is that the tank might be cycling. I don't have a nitrite/ammonia test kit on me right now, but I do see snails cruising around the tank. So are live snails an indication that the water quality is fine? I realize that snails can overcome a lot of adverse tank conditions, but I figure if snails and shrimp are both invertebrates, both must be sensitive to the same stuff right?

Anyway, what're your thoughts? Should I go ahead and acclimate the fish?


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## Adragontattoo (Jun 3, 2007)

Snails are a sign that the tank has water, nothing else honestly IMO.


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

Actually, I think James is pretty right. Snails are an indicator of proper water params, water, and food. If you have killer ammonia or nitrite, I would imagine the snails would be very unhappy considering inverts in general are more sensitive. Snails could live in very high nitrate, but that won't kill many varieties of fish outright- just cause interenal issues with their immune system, overall growth, and possible body function and shape.

This would make for a good experiment, IMO. 
GL


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## eklikewhoa (Jul 24, 2006)

I think snails are a sign of overfeeding.


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## erijnal (Apr 5, 2006)

> Snails are a sign that the tank has water, nothing else honestly IMO.


hahahhaa, I can see where you're coming from. That's definitely a valid point there, since it seems like snails can make it through a lot



> Actually, I think James is pretty right. Snails are an indicator of proper water params, water, and food. If you have killer ammonia or nitrite, I would imagine the snails would be very unhappy considering inverts in general are more sensitive. Snails could live in very high nitrate, but that won't kill many varieties of fish outright- just cause interenal issues with their immune system, overall growth, and possible body function and shape.
> 
> This would make for a good experiment, IMO.
> GL


Right? Man I hope that's the case. I introduced the CPDs last night, I have a really late photoperiod so I won't be able to see clearly whether or not they're ok until about an hour later.



> I think snails are a sign of overfeeding.


I don't think my case really represents the snail population boom that a lot of people experience. Granted, I did have a pretty good number of melted crypt leaves in the tank as a food supply, but I can only see about 5-10 ramshorn snails at a time in my 20 gallon tank. Probably two or three times that number in the tank at least, but still not what I'd consider an explosion.

In any case, I drip-acclimated the CPDs and a single oto last night. A runty CPD didn't make it, but I've found so far that CPDs in general don't seem to take well to environment changes. I observed them for about an hour after they'd been introduced to the tank, and so far so good. It's almost been a day now, so once the lights turn back on, I'll keep an eye on them and report back.


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## mpe1329 (Sep 1, 2007)

Gotta agree with Adragontattoo. I recently had a new tank cycle and had several snails (added after ammonia disappeared) survive at least a week of nitrites that were higher than 10 ppm.


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## Tokyobaby (Jul 26, 2007)

I had snails reproduce in my aged water that was meant for water changes...found at least 10 tiny snails in there, think one must have dropped in there after I pulled some out of the main tank...


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## Volenti (Oct 12, 2007)

I wouldn't be relying on the snails as a water quality indicator too much, I've had snails happily live in water so polluted with excess organic material that you could smell it 10' away...


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## Adragontattoo (Jun 3, 2007)

Volenti said:


> I wouldn't be relying on the snails as a water quality indicator too much, I've had snails happily live in water so polluted with excess organic material that you could smell it 10' away...


this is why I said, snails are a sign of water being present only.


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