# Help! a nerite snail was outside the tank for a month and it's ALIVE!



## manami

How is that possible???

It was inside a broken filter the whole time! More than a month ago my nephew's filter from his glow light tetra tank was broken, so I removed it and put it somewhere else in case I would need the spare parts of the filter for the other two tank's filters. I added an unused filter that came with the tank kit inside. I did noticed that the nerite snail was missing, but I never would have thought that it was INSIDE the filter!

So I put it inside the tank. It moves very slowly and it has a weird "hair like" thing hanging 9n him. Should I remove it in case it'sick? Or wait a few days in case it gets better?

I appreciate your help!

UPDATE: I checked the nerite snail and the hair like thingy it's gone now. It's moving on the glass now.


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## SplashyBetta

Nerite snails are intertidal which means in the wild they experience dry spells in their habitat and can survive outside of water for quite a while (even as long as a month). I've talked to others who had nerite snails escape and live outside of water for weeks.


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## manami

Wow! OK. The nerite snails sure are amazing! I haven't seen it today (it's a tiger nerite snail). Hopefully it's hiding somewhere inside the tank and not inside the filter o_o. I'll have to check the filter now just in case.

Thanks you so much for your help!


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## CelticRavens

Glad you found him & he's doing ok.
Thanks for posting about it, too. Never knew they could survive so long out of the water. My tiger nerite, Nameer, has never gone walkabout, but if so I'll keep looking much longer than I would have before reading this.


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## manami

I suppose the reason he/she survived longer could also be because the broken filter was a aquaclear brand and that filter has these "3 inserts"? One for the sponge, the second the carbon and the third some bio bacteria thingy rocks. And the filter still had water inside (I must have forgotten to remove all the water) and maybe the nerite snail must have hidden in between those things because I never saw it there when I removed the tank. Very lucky the nerite! I saw him today. He's staying at the top at the moment. I have to do a water change this weekend!


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## jadaBlu

I'd clean the tank if you don't see the hair like thing it may have been fungus which got into the tank which can infect the fish. I had a snail infect some fish before.


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## ZZD

That is so awesome! I know nerites go dormant for months sort of like hibernating, but I rarely hear about them doing such outside of water. Sounds like he got lucky the filter still had the sponges to give him just enough to keep on living on. I imagine the hair like stuff is possibly dirt or dust or even algae from the filter. I'd say give the poor fella a bit of time to clean off and recover from his ordeal and then he should be fine to return to life as usual.


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## manami

He's All right now. I just need to move him and the other fish to another tank because an accident happened last night and I just bought another 10 gallon tank today. >_>


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