The Snail Saga

Hi. Hello. Long time no see.First of all, thank you for reading. I know I've been away for a while. Things have been rather hectic here, with moving and buying and selling houses and starting a new job and such. Something happened recently that I just have to share....So. On October 29th (which was mine and D's 3 year anni! <3) one of my students brings me a fish bowl with two goldfish in it. He had been joking/hinting for weeks that he and his classmates were going to buy me a pet because the girls in his class bought the English teacher a baby python. Well. I kept telling him I did not need any other pets or living things to take care of but I guess he didn't care. I got the fishbowl and he was very worried that I was mad at him. I wasn't. Little did he know, I love fish. Every day for the next 3 days, I watched the fish and fed them and every day I realized they were gulping more and more air at the surface of the bowl. Me being me, I did some research and found out they do that when there's not enough dissolved oxygen in the water. Fantastic. I go into panic mode, thinking these fish are going to die and the kids will all be super mad at me. I remembered I had a small fish tank at home so I brought it to school and set it up quickly. I may have also bought quite a few other fish tank supplies aaannndddd 2 snails. The kids named the fish Rice and Beans, so I named my new snails Guac and Queso. The fish were much happier after they could breathe again, and the snails seemed really happy too. Every day the kids would come in and ask if the fish were dead yet. They were shocked when every day I would tell them no. Apparently they had all had bad luck with $0.32 goldfish in the past... (Queso on day 3 of tank life, and Beans in the background.)Back to the snails. Guac was free, because he's so small that they didn't see him stuck to Queso's shell who is much larger. Guac is black and about the size of a pencil eraser. Queso is orange and a little bigger than a grape. Guac has been happy as a clam since day one, scooting all over the tank eating all the stuff the fish drop. Queso was happy for the first few days and then he got very. very. sick.I realized that Queso wasn't moving after about 2 weeks of him being in the tank. I had no idea what was wrong with him so again, I started researching. Turns out Mystery Snails need MUCH warmer water than what he was in. And much harder water. And more calcium. And more algae. Basically everything about the tank was wrong for him. It confused me because Guac was/is fine. Queso declined really fast. He was swollen, couldn't go all the way back in his shell, he just laid on the bottom of the tank and did nothing. I would poke him a few times a day to see if he was alive because I legit thought he was dead every day for about 3 weeks. He never moved, never ate, never came all the way out of his shell. I bought a water testing kit and discovered the water in the tank was too soft. I also bought a thermometer and discovered it was too cold. So I made a snail rehab bowl... See below. The old fishbowl the kids gave me was the perfect spot I thought, so I filled it with warmer tap water and checked the hardness and chemicals to find that it was better than the aquarium water in the jug I bought. I figured it would be his final resting spot, but I held out hope. His swelling went down almost as soon as I put him in the rehab bowl, and he started to come out of his shell some as you can see in the first picture. He was more alive than I had seen him since the first few days I had him. But then the water started to get cold again and I had no way to warm it back up. He swelled back up, then kind of laid half in, half out of his shell. I thought he was a goner so I kept poking him. He would move just enough that I knew he was alive, but not enough to be feeling better. Forgot to mention- his shell was really pitted around the opening and had white craggy lines all over that weren't there when I got him.Begin operation Save Queso. My husband and my parents think I am a complete nutter for caring so much about a $2 snail, but I couldn't just watch him suffer and die. I put Queso back into the tank for the day after the failed rehab attempt and started talking with my mom. She was nice enough to bring me a lightbulb and a cuttlebone to school so I could begin the process. I did a half water change, to get the water more at the correct hardness, added the cuttlebone for calcium, and hoped the lightbulb would provide enough heat to raise the temp of the tank. It didn't help. He closed up tight and had mucus leaking out of him. I decided to go deeper into the snail hole I had dug.Mom told me there was an old fish tank at kids market I could use, so I brought Queso home in a plastic cup. He was closed up tight still. I set up the new tank and put him in and waited. He came half out and then laid there like he was dead for hours. I poked him to make sure he wasn't, and he would move the slightest bit. Then I went and bought a tank heater, a bubbler, and snail food and set it all up. He was immobile for about 2 days and then he started to move some. The next day he was on the side of the tank- which he hadn't been for a month. And tonight- my happiest night- he was down at the bottom of the tank eating the algae pellet I put in for him a few days ago. That's why its all dissolved lol.It's taken about a week of research, trial and error, and a month of worrying over a snail, but I saved him. He's alive and well.You may think it's ridiculous to spend all that time, money, and effort on a mollusk. You may feel the way I do, that you just couldn't watch a living creature suffer and die when you could try to help. Either way- you just read an entire blog post about a snail, so you must care a teeny tiny bit. ;)Thanks again for reading!-Jess