So just to wrap up, after moving the tank back into position on the rack (and a simultaneous massive water change) the shrimp were stressed and came down with a bacterial infection that killed off all the shrimp over the course of a week and a half. My own stupid fault as I think my carbon water filter was due to be replaced, and its possible some chlorine or chloramine made it into the tank.

Here are some photos of the symptoms. Very similar to those described for other stressed shrimp and consistent with a bacterial infection.

 

 

The tank is still running, waiting for new shrimp. Its been a few months now so I'm confident enough to add some more shrimp now. I'll be getting some more soon from Bob. In the meantime the snails have bloomed, and I now have a few more micro golden snails which I'm really happy about. It appears they will breed in captivity, but I'm not sure if they produce live young or eggs.

 

What do they look like normally?

Any other close up & cropped photos I can use to update my Disease and Diagnosis thread?

The earlier photos in this thread show what they look like normally. In the two photos above, the internal tissue is white rather than translucent. Feel free to use the photos in your thread.

Do you have some pictures of the micro golden snails? Just wondering if they might be another notopala since some of the notopalas I collected locally have golden shells.

23 hours ago, Baccus said:

Do you have some pictures of the micro golden snails? Just wondering if they might be another notopala since some of the notopalas I collected locally have golden shells.

Not other than the pictures on the first page of this thread. I haven't put them under the microscope to get some nice close-up pics yet as I'm still trying to get someone to ID them properly (i.e. a taxonomist).

Apparently the Australian Museum is releasing full interactive key of all Australian freshwater molluscs early next year (though don't hold your breath as it was supposed to be released earlier this year and has been delayed). It will be "made available free online and as a mobile app". I'll guess I'll wait until that comes out to be double sure, but I suspect this will be a new species, possibly Notopala. However all the described species of Notopala are quite large as adults and this one does get any more than about 5mm across the shell.

The little mini- golden snails certainly do look like notopalas. I wonder if their small size had anything to do with the mineral content of Barney Springs. The notopalas that I have collected around here are not really huge snails, all the biggest ones I have found have just been dead shells. More usually I find smaller live snails but not as small as the ones you got at Barney Springs. The notopalas that I have found also can have dark shells or golden shells but on the golden shell you can almost always see at least one dark line that follows the spiral of the shell.

 

yes I believe it would be due to the relatively low pH of Barney Springs as the mineral level is actually pretty high (TDS 110 compared to <20 elsewhere near Cairns). I suspect the water coming out from the spring has a high CO2 content. A fish farm near Cairns has very high CO2 levels in its bore water and must add carbonate to neutralize it. Small size is a widespread adaptation to low pH as you don't have to precipitate as much carbonate for your shell or skeleton. Precipitating carbonate at low pH uses alot of energy! For example, all the smallest fish species in the world come from peat swamps.

The mini golden snails can also have dark shells. I have individuals that have 50% and even almost100% black shells, but still have the purple foot.