Post by etana on May 25, 2016 16:18:11 GMT
I had a sudden death among my beloved Archachatina marginata lot... I'll try to tell everything that might be relevant about the snail.
So in the winter he sealed in for a while, and after that, his shell started growing badly. It was soft, uneven and broke easily. I made sure he had calcium available, and he got his weekly protein snack in the form of egg yolk in case it was vitamin D he was lacking. His shell grew fast, but badly.
He was very active, very social, always the first to wake up like clockwork and come beat the glass with his eyes, and I'd have him on my hand etc. He seemed really happy except for his shell, which grew worse and worse. I would even take him out to the balcony, not in direct sunlight of course but so he'd get natural light on him. Everyone else in the tank was, and is, growing normally.
Yesterday he hadn't woken up at his usual time. When I was cleaning up, I found him below the other Margies' sleeping place, upside down and looking strangely swollen. He took a VERY long time to come out of his shell at all, and after he did, he very, very slowly took this position:
It seemed to me that he was pushing something out of his reproductive area, so I took tweezers and pulled at it, and discovered it was loose. With fairly little effort, I got this out:
It was soft, squishy, stayed in one piece, a little less than 1 cm long. He immediately did what shows in the pic - he turned to do something with his mouth over the reproductive area.
Then he squirmed, looked like a bulldog, and appeared all kinds of uncomfortable (I have pics of that too but they're just really sad), rasped on his reproductive area again, squirmed again, repeat a few times. He also rasped my hand exactly once but was unable to do anything with the tiny slice of sweet potato that shows in the pics, so I smashed up some banana for him and he actually ate a tiny bit of it. I put him back into the tank, where my big Tiger snail sat on him so I put him into a different tank with very friendly snails.
At 4:30 at night I was startled awake, and went to see him. His eyes were out, he seemed weak but calm, there was a bit of eye contact between us. I gave him more banana and hoped he'd make it.
In the morning he'd passed out fully outside of his shell, and there were rasp marks on the banana that I'm 90% sure weren't done by the tank mates as at 4:30 they were already going to bed. Worried he'd dry up, I placed him in the shallow bath, with the banana within his reach, and went to campus for my lectures.
I let him rest till 6 pm, which was his usual time to wake up. He had moved in the bath but was fully retracted and extremely unresponsive. He appeared to have had a tiny bowel function, and he was opening and closing his breathing hole but stopped doing even that when on my hand, and I can't find his heartbeat with my flashlight (though I've had snails without heartbeat come back before). I've pretty much declared him dead, he's now in his home tank so his friends can see what has happened.
My theory is that something disturbed his calcium digestion system and that lead to further internal problems. The thing that I pulled out of his cheek - could be a sperm packet if that's how it looks like, his tankmate has a swollen cheek too which suggests that there has been mating, but he's snailing around all normally; or perhaps some eggs broke inside him because the eggshells hadn't formed right due to the calcium problems, and he was able to push that one egg out but eventually died from complications from being eggbound (I have had Margie eggs appear in the tank lately, no hatchlings so far).
Also despite having slept in the bath tub, he appeared really dirty today, covered in yellow and white mucus, the yellow stuff was a strange consistency that I haven't seen on my snails before. It couldn't come from anything in the tank, it was not banana. I am thinking he may have had an internal organ rupture and... spill?
Mostly I wish to hear what you think of the pictures.
RIP my lovely little Seppo. I'll always love you. <3
So in the winter he sealed in for a while, and after that, his shell started growing badly. It was soft, uneven and broke easily. I made sure he had calcium available, and he got his weekly protein snack in the form of egg yolk in case it was vitamin D he was lacking. His shell grew fast, but badly.
He was very active, very social, always the first to wake up like clockwork and come beat the glass with his eyes, and I'd have him on my hand etc. He seemed really happy except for his shell, which grew worse and worse. I would even take him out to the balcony, not in direct sunlight of course but so he'd get natural light on him. Everyone else in the tank was, and is, growing normally.
Yesterday he hadn't woken up at his usual time. When I was cleaning up, I found him below the other Margies' sleeping place, upside down and looking strangely swollen. He took a VERY long time to come out of his shell at all, and after he did, he very, very slowly took this position:
It seemed to me that he was pushing something out of his reproductive area, so I took tweezers and pulled at it, and discovered it was loose. With fairly little effort, I got this out:
It was soft, squishy, stayed in one piece, a little less than 1 cm long. He immediately did what shows in the pic - he turned to do something with his mouth over the reproductive area.
Then he squirmed, looked like a bulldog, and appeared all kinds of uncomfortable (I have pics of that too but they're just really sad), rasped on his reproductive area again, squirmed again, repeat a few times. He also rasped my hand exactly once but was unable to do anything with the tiny slice of sweet potato that shows in the pics, so I smashed up some banana for him and he actually ate a tiny bit of it. I put him back into the tank, where my big Tiger snail sat on him so I put him into a different tank with very friendly snails.
At 4:30 at night I was startled awake, and went to see him. His eyes were out, he seemed weak but calm, there was a bit of eye contact between us. I gave him more banana and hoped he'd make it.
In the morning he'd passed out fully outside of his shell, and there were rasp marks on the banana that I'm 90% sure weren't done by the tank mates as at 4:30 they were already going to bed. Worried he'd dry up, I placed him in the shallow bath, with the banana within his reach, and went to campus for my lectures.
I let him rest till 6 pm, which was his usual time to wake up. He had moved in the bath but was fully retracted and extremely unresponsive. He appeared to have had a tiny bowel function, and he was opening and closing his breathing hole but stopped doing even that when on my hand, and I can't find his heartbeat with my flashlight (though I've had snails without heartbeat come back before). I've pretty much declared him dead, he's now in his home tank so his friends can see what has happened.
My theory is that something disturbed his calcium digestion system and that lead to further internal problems. The thing that I pulled out of his cheek - could be a sperm packet if that's how it looks like, his tankmate has a swollen cheek too which suggests that there has been mating, but he's snailing around all normally; or perhaps some eggs broke inside him because the eggshells hadn't formed right due to the calcium problems, and he was able to push that one egg out but eventually died from complications from being eggbound (I have had Margie eggs appear in the tank lately, no hatchlings so far).
Also despite having slept in the bath tub, he appeared really dirty today, covered in yellow and white mucus, the yellow stuff was a strange consistency that I haven't seen on my snails before. It couldn't come from anything in the tank, it was not banana. I am thinking he may have had an internal organ rupture and... spill?
Mostly I wish to hear what you think of the pictures.
RIP my lovely little Seppo. I'll always love you. <3
x
Good they have hatched and they are doing well