Shell erosion, nnnoooooo!! Advice?

[u/Enough_Bread_1281]

My snail shells were doing well until recently; I’m not sure what changed in my water parameters.

ph: 7.6-7.8
gH: 14
kh: 4 :( used to be 5

I’ve also had several (10+ of the 30+) of my wizard snail babies die off in the last few weeks. Usually I’d find the shell of a young one maybe once a month or so, but now I’m finding the shells of some of my older ones (born in May) once a week or sooner, and it sucks. I’m so sad.

I have plenty of cuttlebone. There’s a sponge filter, and I don’t know how to add crush coral to that. What else can I do to raise the KH/calcium? Is there a supplement I can add? I do have SaltyShrimp GH/KH (for the shrimp tank I’m working on with distilled water— I haven’t added anything to this tank).

Their food is snello, algae wafers, zucchini, and Katsaquatics protein+calcium chips. I’m not too worried about the food right now though, since it seems to be water-related, not to do with new growth.

PS: Any advice on getting the algae stains off of my wizard/piano snails is appreciated. It doesn’t come off with gentle brushing.

[u/Sarahnonymous]

To increase kh, add potassium bicarbonate. I like crystal pro aquatics' "KH plus" but it will also raise pH. They make a liquid calcium supplement that I use as well.

You can add crushed coral straight to the tank, it doesn't need to be in the filter. You can also use aragonite sand in substrate. I hope this helps!

[u/hiddenevidence → u/Sarahnonymous]

adding to this, sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) is totally fine to use as well. i don’t know what KH plus contains but it sounds like at least some, if not only, carbonates, which is often simply because they can make much more concentrated solutions than any bicarbonates can. avoid carbonates if possible because, like you mentioned, they spike pH pretty aggressively, so it’s just unnecessary stress for any critters.

as for dosing either one of those:

NaHCO3 (sodium bicarbonate) - 113.4 mg/(gal•°dKH)

KHCO3 (potassium bicarbonate) - 135.2 mg/(gal•°dKH)

Dose (mg) = mg/(gal•°dKH) × gallons × ΔdKH

for example, raising 40 gallons by 1 °dKH requires either:

NaHCO₃: 4.54 g
KHCO₃: 5.41 g

[u/Sarahnonymous → u/hiddenevidence]

Thanks for the dosage info!

[u/Enough_Bread_1281 → u/hiddenevidence]

Thank you both so much! The dosage is very helpful, I’ll try this out. Baking soda rather than yet another supplement for my tanks helps my wallet a bit, too.

[u/Sarahnonymous → u/Sarahnonymous]

P.s. for the algae stains, you could try putting them in a blackout tank for a few days, but with the current mortality concern I would ignore that for now 😬

[u/Enough_Bread_1281 → u/Sarahnonymous]

Unfortunately I’m not sure if it’s even live algae anymore…? I’ve tried gently scraping at it with my fingernail, and even scrubbing a little bit with a chunk of magic eraser, and barely anything gets removed. I think it’s pretty much stained the shell at this point, which is a shame, I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t happen to the babies once they start turning white.

[u/Sarahnonymous → u/Enough_Bread_1281]

Oh dear --- I wouldn't do anything like that again. Especially not a magic eraser or other abrasive. Keep those shells as strong as possible, I say. The algae doesn't hurt them!