Jump to content

Will they convert?


Baccus

Recommended Posts

Went for a drive around to various places I could think of that might have some nerites and almost every where was a big fat NIL.

Until finally we went to one last place and found quite a variety of shell patterns. I don't know if any or all of these will readily convert to freshwater but I am giving it a go and keeping my fingers crossed. So far its been around 4hrs and I might have gradually changed approximately 1/2 of the salt water to fresh and no deaths so far.

Before even adding any freshwater the snails keep wondering up the sides of the bucket I have them in, I don't know if this is just because they are looking for hiding places or if they really don't like the bucket even with an airstone bubbling away. I am really in a quandary on how to convert them if they wont even stay put in the pure salt water????

I might try taking one of the lava rocks out of one of my tanks and see if the snails will decide to stay/ hide around it even with the change in water.

Without further preamble here are some of my mind.

P1120508_zpscgwdqkzc.jpg

P1120526_zpsitwdfc7a.jpg

P1120533_zpswuuuwof8.jpg

P1120523_zps1p6ijn0l.jpg

P1120511_zpslckdslsj.jpg

P1120513_zpstbvcopo8.jpg

P1120525_zpsomndg3rh.jpg

P1120510_zpskxgxm09c.jpg

 

 

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

These look awesome!! Good luck acclimatising them. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All still seem to be doing well so far and are beginning to stay in the water more after I added a couple of rocks out of one of my tanks.

Next stop for them will be to be put in a fry saver in one of my tanks (with the rocks they currently have) so I can keep an eye on any deaths. I would love to just let them loose but the tank I am planning on putting them in they could easily disappear never to be seen again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Arround midnight lastnight I took the plunge and put all the snails in a floating fry saver in their future intended tank. I couldn't leave them in the bucket any longer as I knew it would have to have started getting a little foul in there even with me adding new fresh water.

This morning I found some of the snails roaming about in the fry saver (thankfully I put the lid on because one determined possible escapee was on it upside down), and thought I might as well let them free, and then leave the suspect remainder in the fry saver and watch to see if any more start roaming about.

Here are the confirmed survivors I put on a lily leaf but now seem to stubbornly not want to move at all. I am leaving them alone just watching to see if they do end up roaming off, hopefully onto the front glass which is nice and green with algae for them.

P1120542_zpsj7epwuak.jpg

P1120545_zpsi4xmvged.jpg

P1120543_zpsq1ignaha.jpg

P1120544_zpshz3way21.jpg

It doesn't look it in the photos but the lily leaf they are on is mostly submerged and they are under water, also there is quite good flow across the top of them from the filter return.

These ones I am more suspect on being survivors since they seem to have stubbornly shut up shop, but I can not smell any decomposing. I am hoping the lack of stink (and we all know the stench of a dead snail) means they are alive just sulking.

P1120548_zps866brdfc.jpg

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I certainly will keep you all posted on their progress. Over the coming weekend I hope to try some other more tidal entering brackish areas and look for other nerites. The two main hurdles are ease of access (no boat only 4wd car) and anywhere crocodiles can/ could/ are lurking. So any murky water areas are pretty much off limits in my search.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Baccus said:

I certainly will keep you all posted on their progress. Over the coming weekend I hope to try some other more tidal entering brackish areas and look for other nerites. The two main hurdles are ease of access (no boat only 4wd car) and anywhere crocodiles can/ could/ are lurking. So any murky water areas are pretty much off limits in my search.

mmm, take care, keep it safe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ohh these nerites are naughty, after shutting up shop nearly all day and stubbornly making out they where dead, in desperation to ensure they where not dead I put them back into their mostly salt water bucket with an airstone running.

Of course within a few minutes of being back in the bucket at least half of them have sprung back into life and are once again making their escapes up the side of the bucket, while others are for now randomly wondering across the bottom. Short of continuing to add pure fresh water to the bucket and only removing water once the bucket is full I am not sure how to proceed with converting these guys. They obviously did not like (for what ever reasons) the intended tank and I doubt the tank that has my Nerites from Gladstone could support so many more nerites as well as the Notopala snails in the tank. The Gladstone nerites never gave me this much grief but then they probably are a different species and where more used to times of fresh water.

At least as far as I can tell none of the new nerites have died, so I will follow the philosophy of "where there is life there is hope".

Keeping it safe was exactly the reason we bailed out of the search in Moores Creek at Kershaw. Aside from appearing denude of most aquatic life even algae it looked rather hazardous when we approached a deeper section of water with regards to a croc that had been sighted near there a few weeks ago. Why is it crocodiles have to always get in the way of a interesting search for local aquatic critters?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Baccus said:

Why is it crocodiles have to always get in the way of a interesting search for local aquatic critters?

Everyone would be netting the local critters if it was not for the fear of those crocs. So think of them as "Nature Preservers".

Keeping the snails out of the light, in a dark spot, might stop them from being tempted to climb. They are probably climbing to escape from the bright lights.

 

Looks like you have to resort to slowly dripping in freshwater into the bucket. 

Edited by jayc
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh man so stunning. I need to get my hands on some too at some stage, they look awesome to macro photograph.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sadly it looks like all of those snails died and for the life of me I can not work out why, they would not remain in the salt water and when I started adding fresh shut up shop.

I got some more of the first nerites that I collected at Gladstone and these have sailed through the acclimatisation process again along with some Pacific Blue Eye fry I also got from the same place.

On a cautionary note, as we where leaving the place where I got the snails and fry I saw which I am sure was a smallish bull shark leap out of the water, in this same tidal storm water inlet I have also seen people letting their dogs swim. I am glad I didn't trust the near murky water that got quite deep near the bank and stuck to the shoreline in my search.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Baccus said:

Sadly it looks like all of those snails died and for the life of me I can not work out why, they would not remain in the salt water and when I started adding fresh shut up shop.

I got some more of the first nerites that I collected at Gladstone and these have sailed through the acclimatisation process again along with some Pacific Blue Eye fry I also got from the same place.

On a cautionary note, as we where leaving the place where I got the snails and fry I saw which I am sure was a smallish bull shark leap out of the water, in this same tidal storm water inlet I have also seen people letting their dogs swim. I am glad I didn't trust the near murky water that got quite deep near the bank and stuck to the shoreline in my search.

I know what you mean about the bull shark ^^ Each time have been diving in the brackish spot, I bring a long knife with me and constantly look behind me ;)

As for the nerites, the only place where I have successfully acclimated them are my discus tank, and my mother's one: 100% success in these 2 tanks. Those 2 tanks have a high TDS level, around 300~380, opposite the others that are around 90~130 and in which all attempts ot acclimatation have failed. Is that the key?

Edited by Matuva
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmmm you going to try again from the same spot? Assuming no sign of sharky that is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I probably wont be going back to Gladstone for a while, my last visit netted me 4 nerites and 5 blue eye fry along with some gobies which I ended up putting back because I didn't think they would convert or live long term in fresh water.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is a shame.

I hope you have better results next time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

they are nerita albicilla by the looks of it. from what i have researched no nerita species will live in anything less than brackish and wont even live there by choice. i have tried with this species several times and their activity slows and they eventually die every time. if you want them for fresh water you need to find  Neritina species, which live in brackish water and can handle fresh. or ideally a theodoxus species, some of which can breed in full fresh apparently. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...

@Baccus, brackish water Nerites close up during unfavourable conditions and get going again when things return to normal. It lets them ride out the huge fluctuations common in estuarine environments. Too bad because they were great looking snails but at least you have some from the Gladstone spot. 

@Alex, there certainly are Nerita species in Australia and elsewhere that can live very well in fresh water. They all suffer terrible shell erosion that will ultimately be fatal in soft and acidic water though. The difficulty is raising their larvae in freshwater. Hopefully I can add something more to the Nerite breeding discussion later on ;)

@Matuva you're exactly right. It's the higher mineral concentration that's helping them. However they will still suffer shell erosion if the pH is much under 7.0. The surprise is that I thought you would keep your Discus in much softer water than that!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Join Our Community!

    Register today, ask questions and share your shrimp and fish tank experiences with us!

  • Must Read SKF Articles

  • Posts

    • beanbag
      Update to say that after a few gravel vacs, front wall scrub, moss / floating plant trim, that the condition seems to have improved.  My current theory is that it is due to waste / debris management, where "stuff" like that brown mulm accumulates in the substrate and behind the HMF filters.  Maybe some tanks can somehow deal with it, but mine can't.  Also another experienced shrimper suggested that maybe those "shell bugs" don't just live on the shrimps but also in this debris.  Maybe this is the reason some tanks fail due to "old tank syndrome" where all they need is a good gravel vac? Also, I am guessing that plant trim helps too because now more of the nutrients and light go into growing algae instead of more plants? Well anyway for this tank I will try weekly water change and monthly gravel vac / plant trim.  For my next tank, I'm thinking of something like an under-gravel system where this mulm can fall down and I vac it out.
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Good to have an update and good to hear you are getting shrimplets, so hopefully your colony will continue and you may not get to the point where you have to cull some to stop over population. These type of shrimp only live 12 - 18 months so the adult deaths may be natural? If you have the time I would do weekly 25% water changes, adding the new water via a drip system and do some vacuuming clean of the substrate each week, even if only a different bit each week! See if that helps in a few months and if it does then stick with that regime? It should help reduce any build-ups that may be occuring!
    • beanbag
      Hello again, much belated update: The tank still has "cycles" of 1-2 month "good streaks" where everybody seems to be doing well, and then a bad streak where the short antenna problem shows up again, and a shrimp dies once every few days.  I am not sure what causes things to go bad, but usually over the course of a few days I will start to see more shrimp quietly standing on the HMF filter, and so I know something is wrong.  Since I am not "doing anything" besides the regular 1-2 week water changes, I just assume that something bad is building up.  Here's a list of things that I've tried that are supposed to be "can't hurt" but didn't prevent the problem either: Dose every other day with Shrimp Fit (very small dose, and the shrimp seem to like it) Sotching Oxydator Seachem Purigen to keep the nitrates lower Keeping the pH below 5.5 with peat Things that I don't do often, so could possibly "reset" the tank back to a good streak, are gravel vac and plant trim, so maybe time to try those again. One other problem I used to have was that sometimes a shrimp would suddenly stop eating with a full or partially full digestive tract that doesn't clear out, and then the shrimp will die within a few days.  I suspected it was one of the foods in my rotation - Shrimp Nature Infection, which contains a bunch of herbal plant things.  I've had this in my food rotation for a few years now and generally didn't seem to cause problems, but I removed it from the rotation anyway.  I don't have a lot of adult Golden Bees at this point so I can't really tell if it worked or not. Overall the tank is not too bad - during the good streaks occasionally a shrimp will get berried and hatch babies with a 33-50% survival rate.  So while there are fewer adults now, there are also a bunch of babies roaming around.  I guess this tank will stagger on, but I really do need to take the time to start up a new tank.  (or figure out the problem)
    • jayc
      If that is the offspring, then the parents are unlikely to be PRL. I tend to agree with you. There are very few PRLs in Australia. And any that claim to be needs to show proof. PRL genes have to start as PRL. CRS that breed true after x generations doesn't turn it into a PRL. Neither can a Taiwan bee shrimp turn into a PRL despite how ever many generations. I've never seen a PRL with that sort of red colour. I have on Red Wines and Red Shadows - Taiwan bee shrimps. So somewhere down the line one of your shrimp might have been mixed with Taiwan bees and is no longer PRL. It just tanks one shrimp to mess up the genes of a whole colony. 
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Sorry, missed this one somehow! The PRL look fantastic and the odd ones look part PRL and part Red wine/Red shadow in the colour. They are still very beautiful but ideally should be seperated to help keep the PRL clean if you can do that.  Nice clear photos!
×
×
  • Create New...