General Care Discussion :: Parasites from snails?

Taking care of your turtle's overall health.

Post Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 9:38 am   Parasites from snails?

Hi there,

So I had two little feeder snails (along with a few ghost shrimp) to help clean the tank and entertain Sedge.

Sedge eventually figured out how to capture the shrimp, although it took a couple weeks.

One of the snails was missing from it's shell within 24 hours of a partial water change. I thought the water change might have weakened or killed the snail and assumed Sedge ate the dead snail (or possibly killed it, but it doesn't seem like he figured that out yet).

So that was a couple weeks ago. The second snail was still hanging around. After a while it got kind of quiet and hid a lot, but I wasn't sure if that was because Sedge was trying harder to hunt it. But then, one morning I got a wonderful worm-crawling out of eye surprise. I 'humanely euthanized' the snail (read: quick death with large rock) to put it out of it's misery and so that Sedge would not eat the parasite.

Now my questions are:

1) Should I be worried that the first snail had this parasite (lungworm? I have read that is what this common parasite might be?) and that Sedge ate it? Sedge is acting fine currently.
2) I would like to get some mystery snails or something to help with algae and because they are a fun addition to the tank. Plus, Sedge doesn't eat them, at least not right away. But is there any way I can get parasite-free snails? Have others here had a lot of snails?

Thanks as usual!!
M
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Kingbird44
 
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Post Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 7:17 am   Re: Parasites from snails?

I don't think so but I guess you'll be on poop duty for a few weeks. I'm not sure where you can purchase parasite-free snails, maybe you can just breed a new generation.
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steve
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Post Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 8:14 pm   Re: Parasites from snails?

There are some snail parasites that require intermediate hosts to complete their life cycle. Some will affect turtles, though, I'm with Steve: I think the chances of infection are small, but I would keep an eye on poo and be alert for behavior changes.

As to parasite free, Steve's also right. Set up another tank and breed a few generations. Any snail parasite that will affect your turtle will die off with the first snails. Just make sure there aren't even fish in the tank.
Tobi a RES born in 2012
1 dog, 1 teenager, 3 aquariums filled with fish, snails, shrimp and a bit of algae
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ljapa
 
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Post Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2016 5:44 pm   Re: Parasites from snails?

Hmm, thanks guys. I think next time I will just go with a couple mystery snails that are actually in a clean-looking tank, rather than the littler feeder snails. It seems like lots of people keep pet store snails with their turtles with no problems...
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Kingbird44
 
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