Mystery snail sick??

[Dluxeshrimps]

What's wrong with my mystery snail?? Help me out

 

 

[josu2]

Tough to say. It's not at all uncommon for a healthy mystery snail to just decide it's time to go immobile for a few days. So there's nothing diagnostic about the way it's acting in these 2 minutes. It obviously snaps back into its shell because it doesn't like the shrimps touching its body to see if it's food! It looks like there must be food out, but if there hasn't been food added for a while (like 2 days), I've noticed that my snails are much more likely to just clam up and wait for better times.

 

In these situations, I generally just leave them be. Usually, they end up coming out and doing their thing. If you suspect the shrimps or something else about the place they are is stressing them out, you can consider picking it up and moving it to a low traffic part of the tank. If it really is sick, there's not much you can do. Of the snails of mine that have met their demise, several spent quite a long time just on the ground, often not fully retreated into their shell.

 

If it dies, it won't be difficult to tell after a short time. It will not stay in its shell and its body won't be firmly attached. It will start to lose its color. Importantly, if you touch it, it will not react at all. Typically it will stink quite a lot if it has been a couple days. My usual practice if I have found one that has just died is to place it in the freezer for 24 hours. This gives me reassurance that if it was just barely alive when I found it, it will have slowly been lulled into a sleep state and then had its misery ended. Also makes it less likely that some dangerous bacteria or parasite brews in my household while I wait to take the animal to the garbage. But let's not jump to any conclusions! It's probably fine, I would assume.

[josu2]

Oh and I just thought I would add that it is believed that these snails and their close relatives go through an aestivation (like hibernation) period in their wild habitats, probably associated with seasonal changes. It's tough to say what kinds of things could trigger that reflex in a captive snail, but my longest-lived snail certainly has had some stretches of time with very low activity.

[Dluxeshrimps]

Wow, that's a lot of info. Thanks much. I will go with the fact that perhaps it's hibernating. I place food and it still doesn't react to it. It's alive that I know. But it stays in place for about 3 weeks now. I hope he doesn't died. He still needs more to grow. I guess that's why they call them a mystery snail, (worse pun ever)