The Puffer Forum

1. FW
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
Nitrates- 20

2. 10 gal with 20 ramhorn snails, 2 apple snails, 2 danios, and 5 ghost shrimp

3. I feed algea waffers about every 2 days and blood worms everyday
I do a 50% water change every weekend
I use Prime and have a cuttle stone in there
A few weeks ago I used Tetra EasyBalance this is the only possible prob I can think of cuz I dont have a air pump

4. I added the danios, cuz I didnt have anywhere to but them, but they dont bother the snails

5. Tank has bin set up for around 3 months
I cycled using the danio and live bacteria

Ok I have this tank set up as a snail breeding tank, and it has worked ok, with 5 new baby snails. But last week they just started dropping like flies! Now I only have 3 hamhorns left and 1 of the danios died, I found him sucked to the filter. Some of the shrimp have turned white, I dont know if this is them molting or what. I dont know what the prob could be. So, all Ive done is two 90% water changes. Sould I treat with meds? What could this be? I dont want to loose my apples.

First, I would separate the apple snails and the ramshorns. Apple snails can eat other snails (found this out the hard way). Also check the pH because snails need a high pH for their shells.

Are they eating the bloodworms? I usually feed mine fish flake and baby fish food. Some sliced cucumbers and carrots work too.

When I first started breeding snails, I got a bunch of pond snails from ebay but shortly after I got them, most of them died off; several survived however and now they reproduce like crazy. Also, I had a tank a long time ago that was severely infested with snails, and I noticed a cycle where they'd be fine for a few months, and then most of them would die off but they'd eventually spring back and repopulate the tank. So maybe what you're experiencing is something like what I was seeing.

Try frozen cauliflower florets for feeding. They sink, which is a big plus. (Or, you can buy fresh, then nuke a few florets for a minute to start them breaking down.) They're cheap and snails love them and grow very fast with this as part of their diet. (Don't worry, the sulfur smell only lasts a day.) You might throw in a few handfuls of crushed coral, if you have it, because it provides minerals they need plus it ups the pH.

I don't trust products like EasyBalance and Nitraban...seems like they fix one problem, but then cause several others.

Thanks guys.

I feed the blood worms for the ghost shrimp and the danio cuz I have leftover form my puffers. I have fed carrots before and I will try the cauliflower, but I dont think feedings the problem.

pH last time I checked was high around 7.6 and high range pH was around 8.2, my tap waters pH is around 7.2.

I have stoped using the EasyBalance cuz I didnt trust it either.

Could they be hibernating? I have not taken them out cuz I didnt know for sure that they were dead, but they have not moved and are laying on their sides.

If you take your fingernail and try pulling them open and they pull back in then yes. If you do that and they pull out then no, they are dead.

Ok that would be easy to do with the apples but the hamhorns go to far into their shells. I tried poking them to see if they would move and I think they did go farther into their shells but idk.

beleive it or not, the ghost shrimp may be eating all your snails... they LOVE snails! they eat them just like puffers do, of course they dont eat the shells but they will a) turn over little snails and eat as much of the snail they can reach or b) when it comes to larger snails, they will eat off their antenae things and everything else that they can reach on the snail, causing them to die. and the snails that have not been eaten yet, but just hide in their shells all the time are just in defensive mode from the shrimp.

This is what happened to my snail tank... the ghost shrimp almost whiped them all out. i took ot the shrimp(fed them to my figure 8s ) and then all of a sudden the snail population started booming again.

All right Ill get a divider for the tank and see if that helps. Or I could put the shrimp in with my dwarf puffers, but I didnt want to do that if the shrimp were sick. Is it ok for them to turn white? This also aplies to the snails, I dont want tho feed the puffers bad food and the snails are the puffers only "crunchy" food.

That's odd...I have several ghost shrimp in my snail breeding tank, and if they're eating my snails, they're not making a big enough dent in the population for me to notice. Maybe it's because I drop in flake food for the ghost shrimp and they're satisfied with it and don't need to eat snails.

Well I do feed my shrimp everyday with whatever I have left from my puffers and sometimes I give them other stuff like flake food, vegies, and algea wafers.

I put the shrimp in a breeder box in the corner but left the apples in the tank, hopefully the ramhorn snails will come out now.

Would it be ok to put the shrimp in another tank with diff fish? Or do you think they are sick? They turned white.

When ghost shrimp die they turn pink, that what I read before. However, last time I went to buy ghost shrimp I saw a lot of dead ghost shrimps and they are white in appearance. You can put ghost shrimp with any fishes as long as the fish is too big for it to catch and as long as the fish will not hunt the shrimps.

One shrimp that had turned the most white did die. But good news is that most of the snails that I thought were dead have come out of their shells. So, I guess the shrimp were the problem. Thanks guys

Easybalance uses oxygen when it binds and precipitates nitrate - in a properly stocked tank with a good filter, it doesn't use near enough to matter, but in a tank with little aeration, it can cause mass smothering.