Acclimating Snails

C

cg175

What is the best way to aclimate my snails (110) and crabs (56 blue legs/4 emeralds) I am getting in a GB? I don't have a (holding tank??) but have read a posting indicating ammonia levels can be an issue with snails. :roll:

Thanks,
Christian
175BF
 
I'm sure others do it differently, but here's what I do...

First thing, I whip out my refractometer and see just how far off the salinity of the water the critters are in is from the water in my tank... I adjust the length of time for acclimation accordingly up or down...

I use a plastic pitcher, rubbermaid container, non-metallic caserole dish (My wife just LOVES it when I use one of those for acclimation!) and pour the critters into it with their water...

From there, I take 1 turkey baster of container water out and discard it, then add 2 turkey basters of tank water to the container... Repeat this procedure every 15 minutes or so until the water in the container matches the salinity of the water in my tank...

Oh, and if the container starts to get too full I just take 2 turkey basters of water out of it...

Snails are very suspectible to ammonia, but they're also very suspectile to osmotic shock from rapid salinity changes, so you have to balance both needs as best as possible...

I'm sure someone else will pipe up with a far better method, but that's how I handle it...
 
I put each thing that's in it's own bag in it's own container. Just because it was bought from the same place doesn't mean it came from the same tank.

We have some plastic mixing bowls we use. We have them ranging from 2 gallons for larger fish to a few quarts for a clam. We also have 3-5 gallon buckets for very large fish.

We use the drip acclimation method. Just put a piece of airline tubing in your tank (anchor it under something) and lead it down in to the bowl on the floor. Tie a knot at the end of the tubing until you get a couple of drips per second coming out. I always go by the rule that when the water is 4x what it was when you first put the item in, then it's ready to go in.

However, over time I've marked a point that's 2x what the level from the bag was then as it fills up I remove a couple of cups and discard them, letting it fill back up to that line (2 to 4 times depending on the item). I drip invertibrates longer than I drip fish (I don't remember where I heard to do this). Often I'll test the water in the bag and if it's very different from my tank I'll let it drip longer and use a bubbler to keep air in the water. Net the fish or invertibrate and put it in. You can just pick up the snails and place them on the glass (Lots of people perfer to put them on the glass to start with, they'll make their way around the tank in a day or so). Sometimes I'll use a cup to get shrimp so they don't jump.

You don't want to starve your little guys of air while they're acclimating. Sometimes it's good to use a bubbler anyway. We have a multi-tap air valve that we purchased for $7 that comes from one pump with adjustable flows for 4 taps. It's pretty easy to just turn one up and drop a bubbler in. We use 1 tap for brine and 1 tap for phyto culturing.

For me the process takes anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours depending on the item and how careful I want to be. However, I'm sure people have their own methods too that they'll share :)
-Catherine
 
For snails, I usually just let them attach to the top rim of the tank and they will slowly make their way into the tank on their own accord.

For crabs and other inverts, follow the advice of others, plan on a 2-3 hr. acclimation time.

Chris
 
That's funny - I was reading how careful y'all are with inverts, and I was thinking, wow, that's a long time for a snail!

I usually float mine awhile, make sure the temperature matches. If I add water to the bag, and can see "waves", then there is still a difference. If no "waves" appear, I take the snails out of the bag, attach them at the top of the tank, and let them find their way down. If I drop one before it attaches, I get it back and let it re-attach.
 
Cathy,
What do you mean by "waves"?

I use drip acclimation and sometimes a turkey baster. Although, I only suck up water from my tank with it to fill up the bag. If the bag is getting too full, I just dump some out. I would think that you'd be risking contaminating your display by sucking water out of the bag with the same turkey baster. JM2C.
 
the "Waves" I am think cathy is talking about is the mixing of two different salinity's

like add DI water to saltwater and you can see the two equalizing out.

basically what she is doing is roughly checking the salinity of the container with the salinity of the tank water. no "waves" = roughly same salintiy

not my method but I think that is what she is saying
 
Yep, Jerry got it exactly right. When I add tank water, sometimes swirls or Curliques or whatever you want to call them show up in the bag. If that is the case, I do a little more acclimating then simply taking the snails out of the bag and putting them along the top of the glass.

I just added 30 snails from a GB, and didn't losa a single one :D All I did was take them out, one at a time, and let them attach to the glass.
 
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