Snails Crawling out of Water?

So I have had 3 snails 2 hermits and a emerald crab living in my tank for about 3 weeks now. I cycled my tank for a month and in the last week of the cycle i added the inverts. so i have been running for a month and a half.

In the last week my Inverts have been acting weird. My hermits are hiding in their shells a lot and not moving much. My snails dont move much. Today I came home and for the first time in a long time they are all on the glass. one is right on the water line. one somehow crawled up onto the out end of the remora HOB skimmer. So why would my snails be running from the water Aloand the hermits hiding?

Heres the thing that I suspect is the problem. So top off for the longer time i was being super careful. I preheated my top off water to the same temperature then started a siphon and added it. (generaly i am adding about a gallon of top off a day)

Now as most of you know this is tedious. So in the last week i havent been preheating the water and i made 5 gallons (i have a ro/di unit) and have been scooping a gallon out of that for the last week and adding it. I quit being careful about the pouring and i have not been heating the water. i just checked the water temperature of the top off its 68 deg and the tank I have been keeping at 77.

Other things that have been different I have not been able to get home at night to turn off the daylights an hour or so before the antics.

So heres my test numbers:

PH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Phosphates 0
Nitrates 0
Calcium 400

all tests are aquarium pharmaceuticals except for calcium thats red sea

So how do I bring my snails back from the brink?

Oh and thats all I have in my 55 and the algae is starting to get out of control. I thought it was good for a while but its been getting worse (partialy because the snails havent seemed to been eating)

Thanks as always guys. It really has been twisting me in knots because im woried my mom is going to be right that i am going to lose to the algae and nature. :-[

 

Gooooood, your using ro-di!!! I dont think that the water temp is a problem, 1 gallon of top-off at 68 degrees cant possibly change the temp of the water by a whole degree! Try leaving the rodi water overnight in the same room as the tank, temperature should be very alike. Also if theres a big algae bloom now, it is very possible that you didnt finish your cycle completely, and the small change that is still hapening to your water could be affecting them.

If you really whant to end your algae problem, what has worked for me the best has been an urchin. It has demolished the hair algae that my tank had. Off course, there not too reef freindly because they may knock rocks, small frags over and even munch on your coraline algae. So you can use them to help cut down algae and them take em back after some weeks for credit in your lfs. Just my opinion.

 

BTW, what type of snails do you have??
I ask because there actually are some snails that are reef freindly, very good inhabitants, but their tidal snail, and dont mind being outside of the water. They usually carry a chekered shell.

 

Oh these are good old Astrea snails. I also have 2 Narsisus snails that run around on the glass. I always wonder with nothing but the live rock base rock sand and inverts if i dont control the algae is there a tipping point where you cant fight it back?

 

You can always succesfully fight algae if, IF your phosphates are low, and you have good water flow. But if you start the battle early, it wont become a headache. Trust me. Give me a couple of minutes, i need a tylenol!!! HEHE

 

Do you have a grounding probe?????? Stray current in the tank might be the cause.

Anne

 

Good catch Anne, but by my understanding, just a minimal amount of current will kill the inverts like snails and hermits, not make them wanna go dry(out of the tank.). Either way Glipzcom, if you dont have a grounding probe,y and aparently Anne stongly recomend you get one, it can save lots of headaches!!

 

Snails will climb up to slightly above the waterline to eat the slime that is there. Some (astreas in my tank, but not the turbos) will also go partly out of the water if the tank temperature gets above 80F.
I'm surprised that your nitrates are at zero. Usually, there are some nitrates, perhaps 5-10ppm.

 

You know, I dont have a grounding probe. I replaced the outlet with a GFCI outlet. But the wiring in the Apartment is so old there is no ground wire. So I guess i should check that. Grounding probe would that be sold at home depot?


Yeah I wonder about my test kits. They are the color matching variety. So they are definately not easy to read with certainty. It looked like one of the Hermits who had been hiding in his shell for a couple days not moving molted. I dont know if thats good or bad.

I am going to try to do another water change? hopefully that will help.

The temperature i try to keep is 77 degrees. and it really doesnt get much higher.

Glen.