Personally, I think the oscar and snails are an obvious problem...


"Allen Smith" wrote in message
om...
| How do people manage to keep these things alive?
|
| I've tried in 2 out of my 3 tanks and they have consistently failed to
| thrive. They sometimes manage to hang on there for up 2 weeks, but
| they always end up dead.
|
| In one tank a 55g with an oscar and a plecostomus, they just simply
| disapear. I have checked to see if they are just out of sight during
| the day by looking with a flashlight during the night to try to find
| any - no luck.
|
| My other tank is a 72g that is heavily planted and has onyx sand as
| the substrate (for comparision the 55g has a neutral substrate). In
| this tank, oddly, the snails seem to hang on for a small period of
| time, but their shells end up lightening in color (they start up a
| dark brown, almost black) and I find them on the surface of the sand
| dead. The onyx sand should be buffering the water to provide more gH
| and kH correct? Shouldn't that be helping the snails out?
|
| Lastly, my 3rd tank a 20 gallon has a profusion of Malaysian Trumpet
| Snails, the tank is rarely fed and the gravel is neutral. I do not see
| why this tank would differ from the 55 in chemistry as the water
| changes occur at the same time and frequency - ie. the water chemisty
| is exactly the same.
|
| Do I lack suffient minerals in my other 2 tanks for whatever reason to
| keep them alive? I know it is not food as I feed profusely and I know
| that there is extra food. I even try leaving an extra algae wafer for
| them when I do introduce them. They just won't stay alive.
|
| My tap water is pH 7.2, gH 3, kH 5 - no other chemicals like flouride
| etc, as it's well water. Do I need to add something to my tanks to
| have the snails survive? Everyone seems to be able to keep them alive
| except me. What is more frustrating is that they breed like crazy in
| the 20 that I rarely feed and I routinely pull 30-50 adult snails out
| of there to introduce to the other tanks.
|
| I do not understand what I'm doing wrong.
| Any suggestions on what I can do that might help them out? I really
| want them to survive in my other tanks if at all possible.
| I've racked my brains and all I can think of is I need more Ca, but I
| cannot understand why they do well in a tank with the same water, but
| do not do so well in a different tank.
|
| Any help would be appreciated.
|