Help Please!!! Major Snail Problems

[saltydog]

So, I'm now in tears!!! Just called the owner of the Store that has installed and been doing monthly maintence on my tank. Her advice with 40 years of saltwater experience. "If your problems is with your snails, just don't put any in the tank!"

As I'm expressing my concern for the quality of life of the animals that I'm purchasing she says, "I like escargo - don't know what your problem is."

Then I hear, "It's a new tank - wait another 6 months before you add any snails." "There is no way for us to check each piece of equipment that's on the tank for voltage." If your fish are fine, just enjoy a beautiful tank of pretty fish!"

AAAAAAUAUAUAUAUAUAUGH

I just hung up on her - and now have to decide if they guy that's been doing my maintenence is going to continue this or I'm completely on my own. Where in the world has good customer service gone... Thanks for listening (or reading) my rant!

 

[Smitty]

Wow...that sucks. Sorry to hear that. If you were in the chicagoland area I would come by and help you...but, don't worry, you have all of us to assist you along the way, just stick around on the site. Were glad to help.

 

[Jschoon]

+1 to all...

Hang in there Salty. I am new here also, but thus far the advice I have received has been 1) honest and 2) helpful. as in everything there are many ways to hammer a nail, some better than others. Keep looking and best of luck, i hope you find the problem soon.

One other thing that could help is that there may be someone in the group that is local to you and willing to provide some 1 on 1 help. probably would not hurt to ask around.

Joe

 

[dcantucson]

saltydog that stinks. But keep the faith. We'll all have you up and going with time. You're better off doing things for yourself. At least you know better what's going on and can control things more.

 

[Bifferwine]

Fire those people, STAT!!! You should absolutely not be giving them any more of your hard-earned money. The owner is not taking your concerns and your problems seriously, which she should, since that is what you are paying that company for!!

There is an easy way to check each piece of equipment. Unplug your grounding probe, then check your water with the voltmeter. If something is still registering, you need to unplug each piece of equipment, one at a time, until you find out which one is causing the electrical problem. When you unplug the broken piece of equipment, the voltmeter will go back down to zero. Once you have isolated which piece of equipment it is (in my experience, it is usually a powerhead, and one time it was a power strip), remove that piece of equipment, and turn everything else on. If you picked the right one, then the voltmeter should read zero after that.

Snails are the most basic component of the cleaner crew. If there is something in there that is killing snails, you cannot possibly be expected to be able to keep corals alive. And even though your fish look "pretty" now, if there's an underlying problem, it will get them too eventually.

I totally suggest you do this on your own from now on. You can do it! You sound like a fast learner, so there's no reason why you can't trouble shoot this and figure out what's going on. At this point, it sounds like you don't really have a choice -- your fish store is staffed with dicks.

 

[dcantucson]

..... and pricks! :frustrat:

 

[yote]

I would have fired em before I even hing the phone up,plus give em a few choice words to sleep on.But thats just my redkneck attitude comin through:mrgreen:
Just follow Biffs advice on checking the voltage.
When ever you come across something your not sure about,post the question and it'll get answered.Thats why were all here,to help each other and learn.

 

[saltydog]

Ok - so here's my question to my new and better experienced reef friends.... I just pulled all of my dead, or upside down but still moving snails, and crab shells out of the tank.

Bought a new hydrometer today. Just tested, but I have no idea what kind of a reading I'm supposed to have for my 210 gallon tank. Currently salinity is a bit above 36ppt, and Specific Gravity is 1.027.

Is this high or normal? If it's off - what do I need to do to correct it, since we've got the automatic water thing installed. And would high salinity be a part of my snail/crab/coral issues?

Hoping to get a volt meter tomorrow and perhaps find some help checking everything that's plugged in.

Also there is something dangling outside my pump system - not sure what it is... Will get the photos off my camera a post a pic, so perhaps someone can enlighten me on why my maintenence guy didn't put this part in the water!

Any of you good folks live in Wichita KS???

 

[Kazarko]

salinity of 36ppt and SG of 1.027 seems a bit high. Also I think you may be out of luck in your area....don't there there are many LFS or much of anything in KS.

 

[Bifferwine]

1.027 is high, but not nearly high enough to cause any problems (your S.G. should be in the 1.023 to 1.026 range). If I were you, I wouldn't even mess with it. At least you can rule that out as the problem.

If you post pics, we'll be happy to ID stuff for you.

 

[saltydog]

Thanks! I won't worry about salinity for a while. But - will it come down on it's own, or eventually will I have to do something about it?

So I have photos to upload, but evidently I'm as forum challenged as I am tank saavy... Wordpress won't let me add photos to my media library - any helpful hints on how to get photos posted here if there on my computer and not at a url link? Sigh.... looks like I'll be learning all kinds of new stuff!

Bless you all for reading and replying to all of these posts!

 

[Bifferwine]

It won't come down on its own. In the future, when you do water changes, make the salinity of the new water just a tad lower than what you would normally do.

The easiest way to post pics from your computer is to click on the paperclip icon when you are posting -- it will let you attach files (if you are doing a quick reply, you will have to push Go Advanced first, then click the paperclip).

Another easy way is to set up a free Photobucket account, upload the pics to Photobucket, and paste the

 

[saltydog]

Gee! I'm moving up...the "go advanced" button. Never even noticed it down there on the page. Thanks for the head's up.

Here are a few pics of my tank and my acrobatic upside down snails, and not doing so hot corals. Also - If I'm able to attach a couple of photos here on my first attempt. There is a cylindar hanging from a tube outside the pump watering hole! (don't cha just love the technical terms for things I don't know how to explain.) It kind of looks like a 35mm film canister. Any clue on why my maintenence guy has it hanging outside instead of in the water?

do any of you sleep??? Seems like there's always somebody out there answering questions!

 

[dcantucson]

do any of you sleep??? Seems like there's always somebody out there answering questions!

We're contracted to be on here 24/7. :mrgreen: :shock: :D

 

[dcantucson]

BTW. Nice tank!

 

[Kazarko]

I don't think there's enough live rock in that tank. Do you have a sump? Can you get your water tested ?

 

[SeaBee]

So, I'm now in tears!!! Just called the owner of the Store that has installed and been doing monthly maintence on my tank. Her advice with 40 years of saltwater experience. "If your problems is with your snails, just don't put any in the tank!"

As I'm expressing my concern for the quality of life of the animals that I'm purchasing she says, "I like escargo - don't know what your problem is."

Then I hear, "It's a new tank - wait another 6 months before you add any snails." "There is no way for us to check each piece of equipment that's on the tank for voltage." If your fish are fine, just enjoy a beautiful tank of pretty fish!"

AAAAAAUAUAUAUAUAUAUGH

I just hung up on her - and now have to decide if they guy that's been doing my maintenence is going to continue this or I'm completely on my own. Where in the world has good customer service gone... Thanks for listening (or reading) my rant!

You got to be F%^#@(in kidding me!!!

I would sit down and figure out what I spent in her store and let her know she just lost her bread and butter customer.

And you're not alone. You have us, and I must say this is one of the coolest groups of people I've ever met on the internet.

There are all sorts of expereinced people on here who are already helping you.

One of the members invited me to call him at home to discuss stuff...very nice/

So just hang in there...I love that lady's comments, I bet she has really big red hair and smokes cigars.

 

[saltydog]

So isn't the sump a part of the pump and all the stuff that's underneath the tank?

How much rock should be in the tank? We had problems with nitrates in our 90 gallon tank because we couldn't get behind the rock to clean.

So how does one get the right amount of rock? AND healthy corals - cuz it seems to me that once your corrals take off - moving rocks to clean is no longer an option...

I've been amazed that my 3 new gobi's have thrived - so I'm thinking that at least we've got good critters for them to be eating on.

Until I get this snail and crab issue figured out - I'm frightened to add anything!

 

[SeaBee]

Salty, you need more live rock in there. Looks like you have about 20 lbs, and a 55 or 65 g. tank. Or did you say a 90? You need 1.5 lbs per gallon of water or your pisssing up a rope. Once you get sand in there you can count that for a little as well. And careful how you stack your rock, if it falls crack goes the glass!!!

 

[Bifferwine]

You definitely need more rock. 1 to 2 pounds per gallon. So in your tank, you want 210 to 420 pounds. That's a lot of rock! Most people can only afford to add pieces slowly, and that's fine. To save money, you can buy dry rock. Dry rock will quickly be seeded by the rock that's already in your tank and will turn live.

Live rock will serve as your #1 source of filtration and will do wonders for your water quality. But that's not your immediate problem, so we won't focus on that too much other than in passing :)

That film canister thingy is supposed to be out of the water. Your guy got that right!

Your skimmer looks like it's pulling lots of dark, nasty gunk, so it's working. Your brain looks a little deflated, and your other corals somewhat wilty, but they don't look like they are dying.

Are those orange polyps in the picture with the brain sun coral? If so, they need to be in the shade. Direct light, like they are in, will kill them. They look retracted and unhappy :(

Have you run a copper test yet? Or ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH?