Snails

I just purchased a cleanup crew and it seems that all of the large Nerite snails have all gone to the top of my tank and are stuck on the plastic divider in the middle of my tank where my canopy top is just out of the water. I even found 1 in the outer part of my Aqueon filter. I was going to try to move them into my tank to spread them out but they are stuck on there pretty good and I do not want to kill them. Is this normal and what can I do to get them in my tank so they can keep it clean.

Also, I took am sort of new at this and I am looking for information on test kits, what to test for, how often to test and where would be a good place to purchase one.

Thanks,

Glenn

 

My snails often spend some time out of the water. It's normal. Annoying, because you want them down cleaning the tank...but it's normal.

As far as test kits go, most people trust API and Salifert brands. Before you have corals, the most important tests are ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. You can buy a set by API that includes all those. You should be able to find it at your LFS or any online petstore. https://www.petsolutions.com/Default.aspx?ItemID=17113401

Once you get into corals you need to test other parameters, but I'm not there yet either!

 

They will do that it's normal for them. When the lights go out they will start to move around, just let them be. As for test kits you want to test for cal, mag, alk, ph, and phosphate, nitrates and nitrites. You can get them from your lfs.

 

I use API test kits, but the phosphate and PH kits can be a pain to read. The PH result never really matches anything on the colour chart. The phosphate result is very feint in colour, and it can be a bit of a guessing game as to what it most closely matches.

If you do a search for the best test kits, you'll find a few threads that really help. When I am restocking my kits, I will be mixing brands to make sure I have accurate and easy to read kits for each parameter.