Snail Falling Emergency Kinda.

So I did my first water change today. And I have had snails and hermits in the tank for over a week now they have all been living fine. But after doing the water change i noticed one of my snails is having a hell of a time sticking to the rocks. He keeps falling to the bottom and so i flip him over (hes an astrea) and he crawls back on the rocks and then backflips back off the rock. There are 2 others in the tank and they are fine. Now i read online that magnesium might be getting to high making his muscles relax? It said I should be dosing with calcium. This was on wet web media.

I dont have a calcium test. I thought I didnt really need to worry about it till i had corals..

So I did my tests

Amonia : 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5-10
PH: 7.8 (thats low right? how do i raise it?)
Phosphate: 0

The first 4 are Aquarium pharmaceuticals tests.
The phosphate is from Red Sea.

I hate trying to read these tests looking through a clear tube trying to match a color to a printed color on a card seems really iffy. Are other tests better?

I dont do any buffering yet didnt really know how to do it and it seems like with kalsawasser and Bionic and all these other products I dont know what I should be doing, so I just figure it was safer to not start doing that stuff yet.

So With all this info. I also want to say I am past the first month. I cycled with live rock from premium aquatics and my tests started reading 0's after 2 weeks. The hair algae was getting out of hand so i added the snails as Conctientious Marine book suggested and cut back on lighting period.

Algae is much better but nothing is cleaning it out of the sand.

All said what should I do going forward. The book doesnt really say other than stocking. But im afraid with falling snails almost giving me a heart attack Im not ready for a fish quite yet. (although I want one really bad)

On the interesting side not having fish to distract the eyes i stare at the rocks and sand all the time and man all the crazy little things i keep spotting for the first time. Today i saw these little things down on the sand that were about a centimeter long and look like like white little shimps with pink and black spots on their back. Man I knew it was going to be cool. but my tank is so much fun.

 

Well I'm new to this but I did alot of research here on this site, go do some searches of the past forum threads. You do need to get your ph up, that is were the kalk and additives come in. There will be plenty of others telling were to go and read some articles. You really don't need fish yet, I had to learn how to raise the ph calcium and alkalinity, does seem overwhelming at first but now I have gotten my specs stable with some DIY doser's. (search on here too for that) Good Luck!

 

Yeah i saw a demo of making a 2 part addititve using dowflake. But I live in san Francisco and I went looking for deicer and the home depot guy laughed and though why the hell would you want that?

hehe.

 

May I suggest reading other threads as mentioned regarding Chemistry etc. There are also many awesome books to help you answer your questions and make you more knowledgeable and successful.
The Reef Aquarium by Delbeck and Sprung is an awesome and impressive collection of information(3volume set) devised to help you in all fields of the saltwater hobby, from chemistry to equipment, corals and inverts and the list goes on and on...If you were to read these books, you would be able to handle almost any situation forward and backwards!
Just a suggestion, however!
Read my reply to your other thread as well!
TOM

 

Glipzcom falling snails can be a sign of low salinity

 

:thumbs_up

Karma to you.

It can also be a sign of waterchange water not matching the salinity or specific gravity of the water that was already in the tank.

 

ahh.. i did try to match them really closely but i think that sounds like a good culprit. I found it very dificult to adjust the salinity. I use instant ocean is there a formula for raising it .001 The tub just says half a cup is good for 5 gallons to make seawater. but there is no other help. so i add a bit then wait then add a bit then wait. but that seems like a really lame system.

Also i did look around before asking and the magnesium thing was the only post i could connect with falling snails. other than the flip them over technique.

So as always thank you guys. I needed this kind of support back when I had my Karmann Ghia and was trying to be my own mechanic. All I had was 2 books and when the answer wasent there i was stuck.

I love you guys for being so helpfu and supportive.