The Planted Tank Forum banner

Dead snail smell- GET IT OFF!

31K views 32 replies 21 participants last post by  jreich 
#1 ·
I haven't yet figured out the reason, but I've been having ramshorn snails die one after another, a few days apart in my 25g. Usually I just pull them out with forceps and put them in a plastic baggie before I throw them away, and I only have to deal with the smell for a few minutes. But today when I looked in the tank what looked like a piece of dead plant was sitting on the substrate, so I pulled it out and put it in my bare hand to take a closer look. Bad idea. Turns out, there was an empty ramshorn shell in the tank, and after a sniff I knew I was holding the body.

For those of you who have never smelled a dead ramshorn, think dirty underwear mixed with bleach. Forget baby diapers, sewer gas, chicken manure, or Fiber-One bar farts; the pungency cannot be beaten. If you throw a dead ramshorn in the trash without bagging it, the smell will fill your kitchen in ten minutes. I'm not kidding. If you ever want to make a stink bomb that could clear out an entire WalMart, dead ramshorns are the way to go.

Now this smell of smells is on my hands and I can't get it off. I've washed my hands three or four times now, with very thorough scrubbing each time. And to make it worse, my nose keeps itching and every time I try to scratch it, I get a gag-inducing whiff of dead snail. Any suggestions for relieving my nose of this evil stench?
 
See less See more
#4 ·
Can you smell the dead snail smell from your tank? Or does the water like mask the smell so you can't tell? I always wondered if a nerite got stuck in the cholla wood and died would I be able to smell it in the water?
 
#7 ·
Can you smell the dead snail smell from your tank? Or does the water like mask the smell so you can't tell? I always wondered if a nerite got stuck in the cholla wood and died would I be able to smell it in the water?
I've read that you can smell them from the water, but I never do. I've been trying to rehabilitate the snails by putting them in a floating guppy breeder, but they end up dieing anyway and I can't smell them even if I stick my nose directly over the breeder. Once I take them out of the water and they dry out a bit, though- OOHHH BOY, watch out!

If a snail dies in the tank and you don't notice it, the other snails (especially MTS) will usually eat the body. You usually won't get a serious ammonia spike, but it can bump up your nitrates.
 
#14 ·
Ever smelled a dead anemone?
...

Don't.
i once got in an order of 4000 nerites, all dead. Imagine that stench
I'm good, thanks.


The ramshorns were purchased two or three weeks ago, and they are all breeder-sized at over 3/4" in diameter. Which makes seeing these giant beauties die even worse. :icon_frow


Here's my list of destinkifiers so far:
Tomato juice
Mouthwash
Vinegar
Hydrogen Peroxide and baking soda (mixed?)
Lemon juice
Shout laundry prestain soap

Lemon juice, mouthwash, and Shout sound best to me because I like the way they smell, so maybe they'll cover up the stink even if they don't actually neutralize it.
 
#15 ·
I just washed my hands with some Shout "Triple Action" stuff. I rubbed/scrubbed my hands together like I was putting on hand lotion. It wasn't oily per se, but it did have a thick, slipperyish texture. After a minute or two, it seemed to have absorbed into my hands, so I washed it off twice with regular handsoap. Now my hands are nice and soft and don't smell nearly as bad. I can still smell snail on one or two fingers, though.
 
#17 ·
Yeah, as long as they're in the water, they don't smell that bad, but once they come out, it's unbearable. If a snail ever crawls out of the tank and dies you might come back to a condemned apartment.

By the time I got to the Shout wash, I had already washed my hands 5-6 times. And when I put the snail in my hand, I placed it on the "palm" of my middle finger, on the bone between the last two joints. The body of the snail was long enough to reach the cracks between my middle finger and the two fingers next to it, which made it kind of drip between my two fingers. I don't think it got under my fingernails, although I certainly washed there. I like letting my nails grow out, and they didn't really smell, so I didn't think it was necessary to cut them.

Thankfully, the smell seems to be gone now.
 
#18 ·
Luckily they'll have a hard time climbing out since I have a canopy :D!

Ok, so contact with the water won't stink up your hands if there's a dead large snail in the tank? Only contact with the actual dead snail will?
 
#19 ·
Contact with the water might make your hands smell, but washing once or twice with regular soap should take care of it. It's the oil-based smells that really seep in that you need to worry about, and you won't get much oil on your hands just from putting them in the water.

There are other things that will stink up your tank, though. Algae usually smells pretty bad. So does anaerobic substrate. And I don't know if it's just me, but aquatic plants in general don't smell very nice. Anything water-based that rots in the tank will probably make the water smell.
 
#22 ·
I just had a huge blue mystery die on me, I tried getting it out with tongs, dropped it. Snail particles EVERYWHERE. Took a while to turkey baster it all out, the whole room started to smell. It smells similar to a rotting plant bulb with white fungus/bacteria growing on it, but with something else added...
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top