Hello all,
I am very pleased to find this message board on aquariums and fish and snails and all those wonderful things!

I have 2 ramshorn snails... the petshop called them "red ramshorn" but they appear to be brown ramshorn snails. brown shell and pink coloured body. They were happy until a few days ago.

My 2 ramshorns have not come out of their shells for 2 to 3 days, and one is floating and i can see it's body, it is white-ish in colour... not hanging out though.

I have used 2 treatments on the fantails i also have in my tank (20 litre tank) one containing a green dye, this treatment was supposed to cure fungal, bacterial and other common fish diseases... it did nothing, but I have been using "API pimafix" for 4 days and the fish are looking GREAT, much better and much happier.... I figured because this treatment was natural it would'nt harm the snails but perhaps this is not the case.

Any sure signs of diagnosing a dead snail?

And any tips (for the future) for what to do with the snails if I need to treat my goldfish again?? As I enjoy my tank with fish and snails together.

Thanks in advance!
Kezz :)

I had the same question with my mystery snails. One was alive, the other one hung out of her shell...and smelled wicked bad. I can only give a general reply, I don't have any ramshorns. I never thought in my old age, I'd be smelling snails. :rolleyes:

Welcome!

Red ramshorn snails are supposed to be good algae eaters. I attached a photo of one below. Snails can float and be alive. They can also hole up for a while. If the snail in question now has a white body, that may indicate that it's decomposing, and in fact, is dead. If you pick it up, if it's alive, it will retract. If it's dead, and you take a sniff, you will know. Dead snail is pretty strong.

The green dye you used could be malachite green or various other dyes. They are toxic to parasites, and they often are toxic to snails as well. I would suspect the medication hurt the snails. PimaFix is all natural and would not harm them. Most antibiotics and all natural treatments are safe for snails. Parasitic and fungal medications usually are not safe for snails. If you needed to treat the tank with those, I would move the snails to another tank.

Thanks heaps for the advice. I took the snails out today, no response and a bit stinky. I also looked up the product website for "multi cure" and discovered that malachite green is in it, aswell and methylene blue. So I can safely assume this is the cause of my snails dying.
I have cleaned the tank to get rid of the green, and will definately get some more snails... At least I will know for next time to be wary of fish medications.

Thanks again,
Reading about other problems has been a great help.
Kezz :)

I'm glad that my guess of malachite green was right (but sad that it was since it killed the snails). Methylene blue is another nasty dye that certainly can kill snails. It's usually used to kill fungus.