dead snails

[at]

Over the past couple months I have noticed a lot of empty snail shells in my tank. Some books I have read say the life expectancy of astrea snails is only about 1 year, others say they live a lot longer. Has anyone else noticed this problem or is it normal. The tank is about 2 years old.

[carpenterwrasse]

there are snails i don't remember which one it is but if it falls on its back it can not flip itself right and will die...but i also have a lot of empty shells in my tank and never really thought about it.

[Fatman]

there are snails i don't remember which one it is but if it falls on its back it can not flip itself right and will die...but i also have a lot of empty shells in my tank and never really thought about it.

This is true, this sadly is how most of our snails end up dieing since we dont notice.

[graphixx]

alot of things can shorten the life of a snail. I would say on thing is temp. if you water is too warm that will shorten their life. and yes when most of them flip they dont have the ability to right themselves and then hermits will get them as well.

[Sweetpea]

Also, if you have too many (as I do because of exremely happily breeding snails ) they will die off from lack of food.

[carpenterwrasse]

my nassarius snails seem mulitply at least i like to think they do...

[JustDavidP]

Astreas are just plain dumb and clumsy. If they end up on their backs, they can't "right" themselves. More often than not, they fall victim to hermit crabs. There is a larger, "banded trochus" snail that looks and behaves like the astreas but can actually turn themselves over (like nassarius do). They also tend to last longer in aquariums. They are easily identified by the darker, sometimes black foot, as opposed to the white/pink of the atrea.

As Greg said, heat can cause premature death. It really jukes up their metabolism and they just perish. Cold temps can also cause them problems. But, for the most part, premature death of snails in aquaria is a result of either a) starvation, or b) osmotic shock.

Yeah.. unless you have a top off system that keep the salinity queued in, the swings (albeit smallish swings) really affect them. The differences between the internal and external pressures of their cell structure, due to swings in the salinity, actually cause the lil' cells to go KABOOM.

Dave