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I feel really terrible...
I recently got a few beautifully colored mystery snails that I had planned to keep in my quarrantine tank to keep things cycled and happy when it's not in use. However, the Q-tank is currently housing a group of sparkling gouramis... You'd think that something so small would be perfeclty harmless, but my experiment with keeping a pair of them with cherry shrimp should have taught me better. The snails arrived in the mail and were active and healthy when I was acclimating them, but I had to go back to work after I'd introduced them into the tank, and when I got home four hours later, all of the snails were tightly encased in their shells, refusing to come out because the little gouramis were nipping at them rather ferociously... I immediately moved them to my 65 gal tank, which is currently home to just a large pleco, but they stayed curled up in their shells. I also had a problem feeding them, as the pleco would come along and devour any food I specifically left near them, and sprinkling the entire tank with food seemed overkill, but I did it anyway...
So my snails have died because they never recovered from the nipping and couldn't get enough food.
I've never lost a fish due to any fault of my own. They've been happy, active, and have even bred in my tanks. So, to lose something that's supposed to be as easy to care for as snails because I was careless is really very disappointing.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Well fed snails can live a week closed up so long as they stay wet. Some species of applesnail can even live for months in the mud. Unless the gouramis nipped off too much of their body they should come out in at least a couple days. Most labryinth fish will go after any inverts but sparkling gouramis just won't give up when they find something interesting. Mine get along in a 55g with shrimp and applesnails but both inverts have learned to duck for cover when the gouramis come by. They have enough space and enough snails they never target one long enough to do it damage.

I moved them to another tank when they were all closed up, and they came out and tried to wonder a bit, but the next day One of them was hanging out of its shell, clearl dead, and the day after that, the others were all the way. The gouramis will be moving to another tank shortly, so I'm going to try again and hopefully have learned something from this saddening experiment.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

I would try to leave them in a tank on their own & possibly breed them. They need calcium to keep their shells healthy.


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