Aestivates every night, one snail passed and not sure why
May 31, 2021 2:46:32 GMT
snaileyhammy likes this
Post by Lumie on May 31, 2021 2:46:32 GMT
Hey everyone, I'm a bit new to this forum so please let me know if this is formatted strange or anything of the sort. I usually post on r/snails with questions but wanted to see if this would give a better response.
So I own milk snails, their names are Kaede and Kaoru. Sadly, Kaoru passed away last week for unknown reasons, as he was up and active just the day prior, then in the morning was on the soil, tail out, can see all the way through the shell, and smelled like dead fish. I have honestly no idea what caused it, and the only issue I have seen with them were two things, they were aestivated every morning when I got up, and I have genuinely never seen them touch the cuttlebone. They usually stuck themselves to the glass with a decent film, so I carefully plucked them off there in the morning and misted them generously, then set them on a fake leaf to get readjusted. There is usually a little open circle of film on the glass where they were resting, which I am aware shouldn't be necessary for them to do every single day. My biggest thought was that the humidity dropped too low over the course of 8 hours, but I was misting the terrarium so heavily during the day that I found a decent sized puddle in a shallow portion of the terrarium, so I pipetted some water out of there. It ended up being about 8 ounces of water, which made me believe I was misting too often. I then thought maybe the air itself wasn't humid enough. so I just recently bought a reptile humidifier. I fill it with the same brand of bottled spring water I use to mist with, and have it run for ten minutes every two hours. However, I still find Kaede plastered up on the glass in the morning.
To help kinda rule out possibilities, here's the few things I make sure to do;
- I always have out food for them. They really seem to enjoy the protein mix from Brittany Bellows on Etsy, but I make sure to add some clean fresh produce in there from time to time. Lately it's been mangos and kale, but I just put out some peeled apple slices and thawed blueberries for Kaede. Found him aestivated in the hide I have for him, so I just plucked him out of there and set him near the food dish, I'll make sure he gets up to at least check it out in a second.
- I use a unscented sensitive skin wet-wipe to clean my hands just to get anything that might not be water-soluble off of them, then wipe them down again with bottled spring water and a clean paper towel to get the stuff from the wet wipe off of my hands.
- I clean the terrarium glass usually every 3 days with the same bottled water and a clean paper towel, and do a deep clean every two-ish weeks of checking for eggs, making sure there's no crazy water build-up, and the like. I do not change the substrate, but if I find any with bits of old food or snail poop I tend to remove it, and might add a bit of fresh coconut fiber and sphagnum moss (which is my substrate of choice)
- Neither of their shells have ever had any visible cracking or seemed thin or weak in any way. They are of a light coloration phenotypically, so it's a bit hard to tell if their shells have gotten paler over time or not.
I'm kinda at a loss with what else to change here. Do I need to run the humidifier more often if not just 24/7? Is Kaede ill? Is there something that I could be doing that I'm not? I'm really worried about losing Kaede as I lost Kaoru so unexpectedly, and I'd be devastated if they both passed because of something I was doing wrong. If there's anything you can think of, please let me know. I just want the best for them and don't want to harm them if I can.
So I own milk snails, their names are Kaede and Kaoru. Sadly, Kaoru passed away last week for unknown reasons, as he was up and active just the day prior, then in the morning was on the soil, tail out, can see all the way through the shell, and smelled like dead fish. I have honestly no idea what caused it, and the only issue I have seen with them were two things, they were aestivated every morning when I got up, and I have genuinely never seen them touch the cuttlebone. They usually stuck themselves to the glass with a decent film, so I carefully plucked them off there in the morning and misted them generously, then set them on a fake leaf to get readjusted. There is usually a little open circle of film on the glass where they were resting, which I am aware shouldn't be necessary for them to do every single day. My biggest thought was that the humidity dropped too low over the course of 8 hours, but I was misting the terrarium so heavily during the day that I found a decent sized puddle in a shallow portion of the terrarium, so I pipetted some water out of there. It ended up being about 8 ounces of water, which made me believe I was misting too often. I then thought maybe the air itself wasn't humid enough. so I just recently bought a reptile humidifier. I fill it with the same brand of bottled spring water I use to mist with, and have it run for ten minutes every two hours. However, I still find Kaede plastered up on the glass in the morning.
To help kinda rule out possibilities, here's the few things I make sure to do;
- I always have out food for them. They really seem to enjoy the protein mix from Brittany Bellows on Etsy, but I make sure to add some clean fresh produce in there from time to time. Lately it's been mangos and kale, but I just put out some peeled apple slices and thawed blueberries for Kaede. Found him aestivated in the hide I have for him, so I just plucked him out of there and set him near the food dish, I'll make sure he gets up to at least check it out in a second.
- I use a unscented sensitive skin wet-wipe to clean my hands just to get anything that might not be water-soluble off of them, then wipe them down again with bottled spring water and a clean paper towel to get the stuff from the wet wipe off of my hands.
- I clean the terrarium glass usually every 3 days with the same bottled water and a clean paper towel, and do a deep clean every two-ish weeks of checking for eggs, making sure there's no crazy water build-up, and the like. I do not change the substrate, but if I find any with bits of old food or snail poop I tend to remove it, and might add a bit of fresh coconut fiber and sphagnum moss (which is my substrate of choice)
- Neither of their shells have ever had any visible cracking or seemed thin or weak in any way. They are of a light coloration phenotypically, so it's a bit hard to tell if their shells have gotten paler over time or not.
I'm kinda at a loss with what else to change here. Do I need to run the humidifier more often if not just 24/7? Is Kaede ill? Is there something that I could be doing that I'm not? I'm really worried about losing Kaede as I lost Kaoru so unexpectedly, and I'd be devastated if they both passed because of something I was doing wrong. If there's anything you can think of, please let me know. I just want the best for them and don't want to harm them if I can.
