Why aren't my snails doing much?

30 gal
Water params good (minus calcium and mag, don't have test kits)
Everything else (oss clown, firefish, scarlet shrimp, emerald crab, green bta, button polyps, hermits, and feather dusters) are all happy and healthy.
5 gal water change weekly

So my question is, why are my astraea and margarita snails near the surface of my tank all the time? I have moved them twice in the past 2 weeks to algae covered areas on the lower glass and they eat for a while, then they go towards the surface and that is it for days and days on end. I have plenty of brown algae they can eat on my glass, and they love it when I move them there, but when they go to the surface thats it until I motivate them again. Help?

 

the margaritas are a temperate species, they are being cooked in a reef. It makes their metabolism race, just a matter of time before it knocks them off. Just the way it is with those species. Lots of reefs out there with margaritas, but they are better in tanks with a temperature less than 70 degrees. But in the end they are snails. They have slow metabolisms, and when they eat a lot they don't keep eating. Then they go back to it. Cleaning with snails is a matter of patience. Give it time and it will work out.

 

Try some turbo snails..

 

do not get turbo snails unless ur rocks are glued together . turbo snails are the peter griffin of the reef world

 

lol Peter Griffin

 

I've never had a problem..

 

Try cerith or trochus snails, they are much better for rock/sand cleaning than the species you have.