Cuttlefish stinks like death !

[snailmanj]

I have been growing and nurturing my first set of 6 GALS (Fulica) for around a year. I think they were a month or two old when I got them (about the size of a small normal garden snail).

Things I have noticed:

When they "dirty-up" their container, it smells vaguely of peanut butter... Has anyone else noticed this ?

Also as they have increased in size, their poop levels have increased massively

This means I have to clean their soil weekly which is a pain, but I just can't stand to see them wallow in their own mushy wee and poo and soily yuckiness as it surely is unhealthy for them !

Anyway, yesterday, I decided to give myself a rest from mucking them out and after removing the dirty soil, I left the container clean so I could see through the perspex sides.

That was fine, but........

The cuttlefish.....

I left a piece or two of cuttlefish and a piece of cucumber in the container and OMG. OOOO MMMMMM GGGGGGG ! ! ! ! !

Lesson learned: NEVER leave cuttlefish bones in a moist environent !

The dead fishy salty smell of satan has almost made me vomit just thinking about it !

I took the six snails out and washed them carefully and I have bleached, yes bleached their entire container !

I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed the container to remove every possible trace of bleach that I could so as not to irritate/poison the snails, but still the smell of hell remains !

I will rinse and clean again and again, trying to use less bleach as I am sure the snails will become ill if I am not careful, but please, everyone, NEVER leave cuttlefish bone in a moist environent.

I think it was the fact that usually, as I have soil in the container, it tends to absorb a lot of the liquid that the snails produce (wee I presume) but as I decided to have a soil-less container, the snails 'juices' marinaded the cuttlefish bone and OMG I can't tell you how foul the smell is !

I shall be buying some nice fresh compost to put in the container ASAP, partly in apology to my snail tenants and partly to try to absorb some of the death smell...

If smells could kill.... I swear .....

[Rachel]

I know how you feel. I used a different brand of cuttlefish than usual a while back. Cleaned the tank and stuck it in, put the lid on and went to bed. All was fine, the snails seemed happy enough, but when i opened the lid to change their food the next morning i was hit by the worst smell ever known, i swear that smell practically knocked me off me feet. I also am convinced it damaged my brain cells as ever since i appear to be thicker. The best bit was i could not smell anything else for days before or after due to monster cold crossed with mega sized hayfever attack. That just proves how bad it was. The only way to shift that smell fully and fast is tonnes of lemon juice. i soaked the tank in it for ages and thankfully it eventually went.

[coyote]

I was about to suggest an enzyme-based cleaner. In my area we have Nature's Miracle; it's based on citrus enzymes that literally digest away the stain or odor. Probably the enzymes (and acids too) in the lemon juice did the same job.

[snailysnail]

the same thing happened to me! but i didn't have enough coir to replace the coir in the tank so what i did was get a hairdryer and blew all the air out of the tank every now and then...and it worked surprisingly well!! just a thought if you have run out of soil for a short while and needed to get rid of the smell.

anna x

[Rachel]

another thing i like is to hang a bundle of dried herbs (mint/sage/lavenders best) in the tank to help fight it.

[Dusk]

Oh, that's a good idea - do they ever eat the dried herbs?

[Wayne]

Sept 22, 2008 20:19:18 GMT Dusk said:

Oh, that's a good idea - do they ever eat the dried herbs?

My snails attempt to eat anything that I put in their tank... lol


Wayne

[whodoesntlovesnails]

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...............well thank you very much for the heads up