Common illnesses, quarantine, and safe treatments.
You’ve got Sulawesi shrimp in the tank, or on the way, and you want them still grazing the rocks a year from now. Keeping them healthy is mostly a stability job, not a medicine job: hold 79-86°F (26-30°C), pH 7.5-8.5,…
Your rabbit snail has sat in the same spot since yesterday with its trapdoor shut. It’s almost certainly alive: these snails are slow, they close the trapdoor whenever they want to be left alone, and a new one can stay…
You don’t need a mineral supplement to help vampire crabs (Geosesarma) molt. Leave the shed shell in the tank so the crab can eat it, keep feeding a varied diet, and make sure every crab can reach clean water it…
A vampire crab that was eating and looked healthy usually died around a molt, after a recent move, in a tank that got too dry or too warm, or of old age. Eating well doesn’t rule any of these out.…
Yes, inbreeding can affect vampire crabs, though it creeps in over generations and doesn’t wreck a colony overnight. No study has measured it in vampire crabs themselves, but in a small freshwater shrimp a single generation of brother-sister mating already…
Did your vampire crab (Geosesarma) turn pale, yellowish or washed out almost overnight? Most often it has just molted, and its normal color comes back as the new shell hardens, in about 1 to 4 days for most crabs and…
Never once seen your vampire crab eat? It’s probably eating fine, just at night and out of sight, because a vampire crab (Geosesarma) mostly feeds after dark and food set out in the evening goes missing overnight. So check the…
A crab sitting motionless in the water, or one that’s simply gone? Check for a molt first, because a vampire crab (Geosesarma) that sits still in the water or seems to vanish may only be molting. Newly bought crabs often…
A vampire crab (Geosesarma) grows by climbing out of its whole old shell, and that empty shell can look just like a dead crab. Check the eyes: a shed has empty, see-through eye shells, while a dead crab still has…
Your rabbit snail has spent days shut in its shell or half-buried in the sand, and you haven’t seen it graze once. Most rabbit snails (Tylomelania sp.) that hide are resting or settling in: keepers commonly report a new snail…
Is that chalky, worn tip on your rabbit snail something to fix? Usually not: on an adult rabbit snail (Tylomelania sp.) a worn tip is old wear that wild snails carry too, while fresh pitting or whitening near the opening…
Your rabbit snail has parked on the front glass, right on the patch you want to clean, and it won’t budge. Pulling a rabbit snail (Tylomelania sp.) straight off the glass can injure it, and the damage isn’t always something…
