What's up with my brig

[Blue-ram]

He is a little over 2yrs old and just started to look like this.  He is moving around and eating just fine.  The other two which are a year old are just fine.  All my snails have a bit of bright blue green algae or rub off from the old tanks blue rocks.  As you can also see he has nerite eggs on him.  They lay them everywhere.

[Debra]

The algae on their shells won't hurt them.

Age is the main factor. Lack of calcium/low pH could also be a contributing factor.

As they age it takes a bit more work to keep their shells in good shape. They really need a high pH and lots of high in calcium food.

You're doing good since he/she has made it to 2 years. You need to boost the calcium it's getting now.

Do you add liquid calcium drops? Is your ph high enough? (At least in the high 7s) Have you moved this snail from tank to tank in the past few months/year?

Sorry for all the questions, but moving snails, lack of calcium, low pH all contribute to shell deformities.

HTH

[Blue-ram]

Yes he has been moved from tank to tank lately. He is home for good I hope.  I try to keep his PH at 7.  I think I will get some liquid calcium.  The other two look a little rough today also.  I did several water changes this weekend.  I put plants that were soaking in alum for several days into the tank and thought maybe I did not rinse them well enough.  The nerites seem fine and they have gone thru the same thing.

While I have you.  I need to ask another question.  Will dwarf sids eat my brigs or would they by chance only eat the pond snails?  All the tear down I did and I still have pond snails.  Just not as much as before.

The algae on their shells won't hurt them.

Age is the main factor. Lack of calcium/low pH could also be a contributing factor.

As they age it takes a bit more work to keep their shells in good shape. They really need a high pH and lots of high in calcium food.

You're doing good since he/she has made it to 2 years. You need to boost the calcium it's getting now.

Do you add liquid calcium drops? Is your ph high enough? (At least in the high 7s) Have you moved this snail from tank to tank in the past few months/year?

Sorry for all the questions, but moving snails, lack of calcium, low pH all contribute to shell deformities.

HTH

[Debra]

The only loach that I know of that will not eat snails is khulis. I have never kept sids so I'm not certain if they will try to eat the brigs.

Sorry about the pond snails. They are really hard to get rid of once they get in your tank.

Hopefully the water changes will dilute the alum. Other than moving them temporarily, thats all I know of that you could have done.

When you move Brigs from one tank to another it tends to leave etched lines on them. It's not really a problem but makes their shells look a little odd. I asked because I can clearly see lines on the shell in the picture. Different water conditions make a line when you move them. It's odd, but I've seen it on my own snails.

You need to slowly raise your pH if you want them to live their full life span. A little bit of crushed coral will in general raise the pH and not harm any of your fish. You need to get it up to as close to 8 as possible. I accept 7.8 as high enough for my brigs but I also add a few drops of Kent's liquid calcium every few days. You can float a cuttle bone for them to graze on.

I order Kent's online. I can't find it in any of the stores around me and have wasted money on calcium products that don't actually add calcium.

You're doing good, just up the pH and dose them with calcium and stop the erosion.

HTH