Snails->Fish: Cross Contamination?

[Euclid]

About 2 months ago I put close to a dozen new fish into my empty cycled tank. 2 or 3 of the died then, which I expected to happen.

Everything was fine and dandy for a month and a half or so, all the fish were happy and energetic and eating well. Last week I put in about 300 Ilyanassa Snails off of eBay.

When the snails came in I put them in a cooler full of tank water for about 5 hours. I then picked out the obviously alive ones and dropped them in the tank.

The next day, all of my fish started dying off one by one. Today all of my fish are dead except for a lawnmower blenny. Other than the fish, everything seems to be doing fine (brittlestars, crabs, lobsters, hermits, snails, etc).

Is it possible that these snails had some kind of parasite that infected my tank?

The fish would all start breathing very rapidly and weren't very active at all. Thier flesh started to literally rot away and they got strange looking sores on thier body.

I've done basic tests on my water and everything is testing out fine. Do I have some kind of mutant liverock? Strange chemicals in the water? Parasites? Does anybody have any ideas?

Here are some pictures of one of the Heniochus on his way out to help show the symptons. Not for the weak of heart.

http://i11.tinypic.com/3zkwehv.jpg
http://i11.tinypic.com/2n0613r.jpg

[Jynxgirl]

I had an experience with snails after putting them in but my fish all died the next morning except my gsm clown, diamond goby (wish he had died!!!!) and a lawnmower blenny. All of them were checking out but i scooped them up and put them in another tank I had set up. They had breathing problems though for quite a few weeks.

I put my snails in at about six at night and by eight in the morning, the fish had died. The snails came in dieing and not in good shape because it was just too hot. I did massive water changes over a few days time. I took my corals and clams out but I still lost over 90% of them (the xenia did great I might add). I changed out 50% of my water for three days straight and then was doing 25 to 30 gallons a day for a few additoinal days. It almost made me sell my tanks.

When I tested my water, I had a huge amonia spike as well as nitrates and nitrites were very high. It surprised me that everything could be effected that that fast in a 135 gallon tank :( I always throw the snails in another tank for quarnatine for a few days now. It was a costly lesson.

Was anything maybe dropped in the tank? I am so sorry to hear about your fish. :(

[demodiki]

You put a dozen fish in a newly cycled tank? And you expected some to die? I would say your problems are environmentl/stress.

[Instar]

Snails from back wash areas and out falls can be loaded with bacteria and protozoans and pyramidellae snails. Ship them with some dying and then
they spew all that into your tank. QT snails for some time when you don't know where they came from exactly. I prefer to
dip mine just like corals and then place them in QT tanks first. I lost 6 blue tear drops to a mess of snails like those that came
from some place else carrying protozoans. Some marine micro organisms are deadly when introduced to your tank, as you have
unfortunately experienced. It is possible these snails will need treated with something to remove the extraneous bacteria and
protists. It's likely going to be some time before you can put anything in that tank again. Test it with only one fish later. This
is always going to be a much higher risk when dealing outside the established dealers.

[caferacermike]

You put a dozen fish in a newly cycled tank? And you expected some to die? I would say your problems are environmentl/stress.

Not a newly cycled tank.

The tank had been up for years at another house. Was moved to this location and all inhabitants were fine. Story was Cody went on a vacation for a few weeks and his roomates unplugged his tank. Of course everything died. So we cleaned it all up, increased his live rock, switched out a lot of it for fresh rock. Cycled through the tank again using cultures of LS from numerous other tanks to add more biodiversity. It had been like that for 3 months before introducing new fish.

I have an open wholesale account and offered to let Cody buy in at cost to try and restock his tank. It is very easy to point out what you just said but to that I also must ask if your LFS does anything different 3 times a week? Order large amounts of fish, practically dump them striaght into the tanks. At least Cody had the oppurtunity to acclimate them for long periods before introducing them.

I believe 2 fish succombed in the first 2 weeks. Not imediately. That tells me they just did not want to adjust. The rest were all healthy, active and feeding well until the snails arrived.

I feel bad for cody as I had mentioned I had bought snails like this for my tank numerous times and had not had any troubles. This particular vendor seems to have snails collected all over and shipped from who knows where. Unfortunately it appears these were quite dirty. A cople of batches arrived completely dead. This was a "makeup" order.

[Euclid]

Thanks for the clarification Mike!
P.S. I've recieved a few PM's regarding this post. For those who might be curious, the vendor that I bought these snails from goes by the name of 'starrmegeddon' on eBay.

[Euclid]

My lawnmower blenny, the last survivor, is up against the glass today with clouded over eyes. Looks like whatever the problem was still exists.
So do you guys think it's the snails or something else?
I was hoping to get some comments/advice from some of you illness gurus.

[Euclid]

It's now about a month and a half later. My anenomes, starfish, lobsters, crabs, hermits and snails all appear to be in good health. Everything else died off about a month ago.

Do you guys think it'd be safe to start introducing fish into this tank again? What would be something good to start out with?

Thanks!

[Euclid]

So I'm really wondering if it'd be safe to reintroduce fish into this tank... could somebody more knowledgable than I please let me know what they think?

[thedude]

Cody,

This is an article on the "nassarius" snails you purchased that may shed some light on your problem.

"While the other problems with keeping these snails in a reef tank concern the well-being of the snails themselves and the tank's other inhabitants, one threat could hit a little closer to home. Ilyanassa is an intermediate host for at least nine species of trematode fluke. In most populations, over 50% of the adult snails have at least one species of this parasite, and in some populations the rate of infection is as high as 94% (Curtis and Hubbard, 1990; Curtis, 1997)! While none of these flukes actually targets humans as hosts, they do sometimes mistakenly burrow into human skin and cause what is known as "swimmers' itch," or more properly, cercarial dermatitis (Sindermann, 1960). This condition creates an extremely itchy rash similar to poison ivy that can last for up to a week. Affected snails will continue to release the infective stage of these flukes into a tank for up to a decade (assuming the snails live that long), and any exposure to the tank's water puts the aquarist at risk of infection (Curtis et al., 2000).

Interestingly enough, the flukes that infect Ilyanassa harm them not only by stealing nutrition and castrating the animals, they can also actually control the snails' behavior. Infected snails make more frequent trips to, and go higher into, the intertidal zone where they are more likely to encounter birds and crustaceans, which are the flukes' primary hosts (Curtis, 1993). Coincidentally, that's also where they are more likely to encounter livestock collectors. As a result of this behavioral modification, it's highly likely that collectors of these snails have an unintentional bias toward infected specimens."

Full Article here: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/mg/index.php

So basically what we need to determine is how long a trematode fluke can survive in a reef tank. I personally, have no idea.

[SoLiD]

Holy Cr@p. Not Good............... Not Good.

[Ram_Puppy]

I do hope you left VERy negative feedback.

[jroescher]

I bought these also about the same time you did Euclid, and filled my tanks with them. Twice! Then I found the article thedude references. I didn't have any problems with snails damaging my tanks, but I lost a lot of sleep worrying about them. The first batch of snails were mostly dead, and my valentini puffer promply ate the rest of the survivors. The second batch was all good and the puffer left them alone. Now I have a tank full of ugly black snails and a fat puffer.

They don't seem to do any good in my tank, but they keep my refugium glass spotless.

I just checked Ebay and starrmegeddon, and others, are still selling these snails. "This snail is completely reef aquarium safe and is harmless to corals and other marine inverts."

The listings say they are in Freeport, but the package comes shipped from North Carolina, just like the article says.

[SoLiD]

I also got these snails about 7 months ago. I was going to purchase these snails fom "starrmegeddon" but was warned buy another ebay snail seller of his poor survival rate. So I ordered them from "somethingsfishyreefs" instead. But one major thing I did when I got them was go through each one to clean all the crud off their shells. It took about 2.5 hours to scrape, clean, and reclean, and re-reclean 750 snails. Yeah, I said 750 snails. I thought at least half would die. But not a one did. After 2 water changes, and having them in quarantine for a week and a half, I moved them to the newly cycled 125 gallon tank with the 4 fire fish that had been in there for a week. None of the fish got ich or died. They absolutely ate every piece of left over food in the tank. I got rid of most of them due to the fact that none ever died and expected the hundred or so that I kept would be around for a long time. I never intended to have a snail only aquarium and they are quite ugly. So most were bannished to my refugium and macro algea tank. I have yet to see anything negative about them other than their appearance. Anyhow, I'll probally keep watching them for as long as I have them. - SoLiD

[Euclid]

So I should just take all the snails out? Would that help?

[caferacermike]

Cody it's such a tough call with your tank. You lost an entire tank full of fish just before the snail addition as well. It is possible something was released by some of the snails on this go around. I myself have bought about 800 of the same snails for my 75g and have suffered no ill effects. Does anybody know if it is possible to have a water analysis done to tell if there are toxins or microbes in the water? Could somebody at UT do this for you?

[Euclid]

Mike, I don't think I've really been able to express just how appreciative and thankful I am of your advice and support and mentorship. You've gone so far above and beyond what I ever could have expected and I really appreciate it man, you're a great person and I owe you a big one. Thanks so much for everything, you rock.

[caferacermike]

Been meaning to get ahold of you but I've been working about 70 hours a week for, well so long I don't really remember. I seem to veg out when I get home. In fact it's 12:08 am right now. I just got in from work and I started on the site today at 5:30am. Headed back in at 5:30 tomorrow. We'll meet up again.

[Euclid]

Got a couple damsels at my LFS the other day and they seem to be doing great! Mike, I'm back on the hunt for a small skimmer. I'm open to HOB options now, if you've still got that one for sale.

[Euclid]

My ammonia readings were zero'd out throughout the entire death process, though.

[txstateunivreefer]

sorry to hear about your fish contamination from snails is a huge issue they are the greyhound bus for paracites usually they are an intermediate carrier for paracites but what would cause problems. paracites get their name because they are paracitic on their host the first place they go is the gills it is the most efficent way for them to get some food hence your breathing problems i might dip your fish or at least thats what Dr. David Huffman at TX state says might help (paricitologist) same thing is going on with the fountan darter a fish in the sm river someone threw a asian snail in the river with centrosestus formusanus a paracite using the snail as a host that attached its self to the gills of the fish and since darters lack a swim bladder they drown becuase they cannot gulp the air from the surface. get your snails out of your tank they are still hosts that is if it is a parasitic problem get a UV sterilizer i would think clean the system out at least thats what i would do if you want to learn more about paracites ask you wont eat pork anymore...

[txstateunivreefer]

I hope it's not a parasite anyway, or at least if it was that it's run it's course and died off now that the tank has been free of fish for a while.

no paracites use snails as intermediate hosts (meaning that they may still be there) thats the problem get rid of your snails and get them from somewhere you trust

google snails and parasites or gastropods as parasite hosts

[Euclid]

The tank was at 55* with no fish for 3 or 4 months... I think whatever was in there died off. Like I said, I'm on day 4 with new fish and they seem happy as can be (now that i've rescued them from the hell that is Petsmart). :)

[jroescher]

I have a bunch of these in my tank still. If anybody would like some, I'll donate them to you for free!!

[Euclid]

I have a bunch of these in my tank still. If anybody would like some, I'll donate them to you for free!!

I can see the thread now...: FREE KILLER SNAILS!!! take one, take all, they're FREE!!! :lol