New Tank - Clean Up Crew not doing well

[Hookup]

From what I can see it really looks like....


Nothing's wrong. 


Some snails are tidal and do come out of the water... Mine do..  And when they are not there they often are at the bottom of the glass near/at sand.

One suggestion, turn the lights out, wait for 30+ min and see if there's activity... Wait 30min and check again...  Often cuc is more active just after lights out.

[Bob P]

No lights on, no.  Hope the temperature is the problem and they pull through. I don't want to pick out 40 dead snails and crabs!

Salt +- a few points, temp +- 5 even 10 degrees, niether of these is an issue I.M.O.
I have snails that go above the waterline occasionally.
Could be the old conditioner.
My concern, as in the above quote, is you have about 4 times as many cleaner uppers than
you really need. Worse in a "Virgin" tank. They're going to stave in no time at all.

[blizzack1]

Thanks a lot, guys.  I think I may have been overly cautions because one variety of snail was 100% out of the water (3 of the 3), and a bunch of others were around the waterline... now most of the snails are all over the tank and the crabs are motoring around.  There are a few snails that are totally under the sand except for the 'snout' (I know there is a technical term for it, forgive me, I'm new .

Between dropping the temp, dosing with prime and getting some surface agitation, I think things are alright.  I'm crossing my fingers that some of the snails are 'tidal' - thanks Hookup!  Sorry I Don't know the names of anything, I just asked a clean-up crew from the store.

And yes, I used live rock (which was covered in tons of @#$@#), so there should be tons to eat.  But I haven't been running my lights.. will the snails get by with what's on the rock, or are they mostly interested in algae?

I have two 39W T5s at present, but I only turn them on to check to the 'action'.

Cheers.

did you feed the tank at all, there would not really be a cycle without any biological waste ie fish poop, or food or whatever, otherwise you just have a tank of water, unless the live rock was in fact live rock (not dried) I would test it again in few days since the snails are dying I would let nature take it course and let the snail die off causing amonia to build to start a proper cycle. It sounds to me as maybe the tank never really had a cycle to begin with 

[Malyon18]

The snails that are under the sand and probably nassarius and that is what they do until the lights go out then they usually come out looking for food (in my tank anyways)

[blizzack1]

Salt +- a few points, temp +- 5 even 10 degrees, niether of these is an issue I.M.O.
I have snails that go above the waterline occasionally.
Could be the old conditioner.
My concern, as in the above quote, is you have about 4 times as many cleaner uppers than
you really need. Worse in a "Virgin" tank. They're going to stave in no time at all.

That was 20 of each, 40 total.  Am I that overstocked?

[Hookup]

Again, IMO, nothing's wrong.  With LR die off etc likely no issue...  I'd still throw a few (10?) sinking pellets in once a day for the hermits till the cycle is complete, ... Which I'm sorry but I wasn't paying attention, I think you said your reading 0ppm (undetectable) across the board so maybe you are complete then?

Either way,  FWIW sounds like everything's ship shape to me.

[Greatwhite]

temp +- 5 even 10 degrees

I have to agree with this one from personal experience -- on the cool side....  I recently went to Florida for a week after having moved my heater out of, and back into my overflow to catch a little Goby from my overflow. I always turn off my heater when it is coming out of the water because I'm paranoid of exploding them.

And yep, forgot to turn the heater back on.  1 week away, with the house temperature down about 5 degrees from normal and no heater running in the tank.  It was COLD.  I can't say HOW cold, but it was certainly chilly to the touch.  Everyone in my tank survived, thankfully.  I figure that ocean temperatures vary, so they may have had a 1 week hibernation.

Your snails will graze on whatever is green and growing on the live rock...  My turbo snails love green hair algae...  Like Hookup pointed out, my snails don't really do much during the day, but are all over the glass at night.  I think it'd help to let them know when it's day and night though.

If your nitrites/nitrates are 0ish, it may be a good time to add a fish or 2.  That will certainly liven things up a bit.   Just don't run out and get a crazy expensive fish - just in case.