The Puffer Forum

Just drop em in.

Pufferpunk wrote:Just drop em in.

Thanks. Hearing the same advice again makes me feel a bit better about doing so. Guess I worry too much about messing things up with it being my first saltwater tank and trying to make sure I go about everything the right way.

i got about 200 nassarius snails for my gsp tank on ebay for about $15. they've done great. they bury in the sand most of the time, but will come out for left over food or sometimes all over the glass at night. the puffers tried to eat a bunch, but gave up after a while. they like to look for them in the sand when they're hungry too!

thenewpufferintown wrote:i got about 200 nassarius snails for my gsp tank on ebay for about $15. they've done great. they bury in the sand most of the time, but will come out for left over food or sometimes all over the glass at night. the puffers tried to eat a bunch, but gave up after a while. they like to look for them in the sand when they're hungry too!

$15? You don't mean $150 do you lol? The cheapest listing I saw on ebay for that many was $140 or so. If you got them for $15, then you got one MONSTER of a deal.

No kidding!

thenewpufferintown wrote:i got about 200 nassarius snails for my gsp tank on ebay for about $15. they've done great. they bury in the sand most of the time, but will come out for left over food or sometimes all over the glass at night. the puffers tried to eat a bunch, but gave up after a while. they like to look for them in the sand when they're hungry too!

Wow. If thats not a typo or a mistake on the sellers part then that is one awesome deal!

Or 20 not 200? Even thats still not a bad price if it includes shipping.

My total from reefclears was almost $54 with shipping and includs:

10 small empty hermit shells
10 medium/large empty hermit shells
2 red gracillaria
1 ulva
3 bue leg hermits
12 nassarius
2 scarlet hermits
5 dwarf cerith
5 florida cerith
10 zig zag periwinkles


I definitely wanted some of the nassarius to help keep the sand clean. I didn't want to get too many of any just yet, even though I'm sure they'll get eaten over time, but with the tank just starting I don't want them to starve. I also haven't had any sort of algae blooms and don't have much of a bioload with just the starry blenny and some red legged hermits at the moment. (speaking of the blenny, he's been hiding an awful lot ). I wasn't too sure what to expect as far as their needs and cleaning abilities so thought I'd be safer starting off with a small number.

Making good progress!

I recommend you put a lot of shells in the tank to mask hermits and snails. This will help a bit against them getting eaten .

For laughs, put a larger shell in too, just too big for the hermits and watch them check it out over and over .

sgtmyers88 wrote:Making good progress!

Thank you!

I still kinda can't believe I have life in the tank now. I expected the cycling to take much longer than it did. Good feeling though

Tim wrote:I recommend you put a lot of shells in the tank to mask hermits and snails. This will help a bit against them getting eaten .

For laughs, put a larger shell in too, just too big for the hermits and watch them check it out over and over .

I know most of the hermits will stay small but I did order some medium/large shells as well so I'll probably see them doing just that. I didn't know much of what to expect with their behavior but have read they seem to be interesting to watch and have their funny antics.

I'll have at least 20 empty shells in there and 14 hermits total if all make the trip. And then like 33 snails total. May get more shells just to be safe. My intention withe the empty shells was making sure the hermits had some to move into and to help disguise them to a point. I didn't even think it may help discourage the snail CUC being dinner. We'll see. I don't expect them to last forever

Well...look what I found..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/260-Saltwater-S ... 35bac34b9d
There are other packages as well with some nice prices.

Guess I should have checked out Ebay first!


ETA: Getting back to topic, my lights came in today. I'm excited and just wanted to mention

*GSP*Fan* wrote:

Tim wrote:I recommend you put a lot of shells in the tank to mask hermits and snails. This will help a bit against them getting eaten .

For laughs, put a larger shell in too, just too big for the hermits and watch them check it out over and over .

I know most of the hermits will stay small but I did order some medium/large shells as well so I'll probably see them doing just that. I didn't know much of what to expect with their behavior but have read they seem to be interesting to watch and have their funny antics.

I swear I've seen disappointment on a hermit when the shell he spent looking at for 5 minutes turned out to be too large for him

For those of you who know I thought my GSP ate my smaller hermits, I found both of them in the tank! Smart little guys. They stay secured up in a niche in the LR during the day. I hope at night they can spend some time "cleaning". I still do think the red legged hermit got eaten, I have lots of empty shells, but found one empty that I'm pretty sure he was in. Bought a monsterous size turbo snail, and so far he's good I'm sure he gets checked out alot, and likely picked on, but I don't see it if it's going on.

That seems like a great price on so many snails the OP found on ebay. It's getting cold here, I'm not sure about shipping now? Are they very tolerate of cold? I bet you could go a long time without feeding your puffer with all those in the tank? Many are probably very small, and would get eaten right up. I'm tempted to get those when we're out of town for 10 days over Christmas.

Gwen

PufferMe! wrote:For those of you who know I thought my GSP ate my smaller hermits, I found both of them in the tank! Smart little guys. They stay secured up in a niche in the LR during the day. I hope at night they can spend some time "cleaning". I still do think the red legged hermit got eaten, I have lots of empty shells, but found one empty that I'm pretty sure he was in. Bought a monsterous size turbo snail, and so far he's good I'm sure he gets checked out alot, and likely picked on, but I don't see it if it's going on.

That seems like a great price on so many snails the OP found on ebay. It's getting cold here, I'm not sure about shipping now? Are they very tolerate of cold? I bet you could go a long time without feeding your puffer with all those in the tank? Many are probably very small, and would get eaten right up. I'm tempted to get those when we're out of town for 10 days over Christmas.

Gwen

After another member mentioned where and for how much they got their snail I thoughtI would look. They have a few packages like that of different sizes. Seemed most of them contained a lot, like at least 100, of snails. That seems like a little much for a smaller tank unless of course they were getting eaten on a regular basis

I think I'm going to order some of those off of ebay actually. I only got 12 of the nassarius and would like to get more. They actually came in today. I've seen one come up from underneath the sand, it was pretty neat.

Oh and about the shipping. I believe they would send them packaged with a heatpack. I want to say I read that on the ebay page for the snails.

I also don't have my GSP yet so I am not sure what to expect when it comes to the hermits and snails getting eaten. I'm sure it will happen just wonder how quickly.

Tim wrote:

*GSP*Fan* wrote:

Tim wrote:I recommend you put a lot of shells in the tank to mask hermits and snails. This will help a bit against them getting eaten .

For laughs, put a larger shell in too, just too big for the hermits and watch them check it out over and over .

I know most of the hermits will stay small but I did order some medium/large shells as well so I'll probably see them doing just that. I didn't know much of what to expect with their behavior but have read they seem to be interesting to watch and have their funny antics.

I swear I've seen disappointment on a hermit when the shell he spent looking at for 5 minutes turned out to be too large for him

I'd love to see that.

My order came in today so I'll be spending some time observing them. I already had a few hermits in there and then got more today along with some snails. I'm not sure which, but some of the hermits were messing with the snails before I had to leave for work. I tried to separate what I could before leaving but didn't have a lot of time. My boyfriend did some separating as well I believe and said he saw one hermit switch shells, said it was weird lol.

Om the bright side I finally saw my starry out again today. I had begun to think maybe he had got himself stuck. He has found himself a nice little cave up in some rock to where I can only see his face and its hard to even see it. I'm sure he'll warm up and stay out more before long I just hate waiting. I want to see him