any aquarists here? I need some help...

[Crispy42]

You can definitely add more fish eventually! Sorry, I didn't mean to make you think you could never have fish again! You just need to wait until your tank finishes this mini cycle and is a better environment for them. Here is an article that explains the nitrogen cycle if you aren't familiar: http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/bi...rogencycle.htm

Snails produce a shocking amount of waste for their size. In a small tank like yours, it certainly could have been the tipping point since the waste doesn't have 50 gallons of water to dilute it. Ideally I would recommend returning at least one of the snails if possible to reduce the bioload (aka amount of poop) in your tank. I'd also recommend, once your tank is done cycling, to start doing weekly 25% water changes instead of monthly. 40 ppm nitrates is a bit high. I would recommend testing your tap water directly out of the faucet to see if it already has that nitrate level present. If not, then it is probably a symptom of the infrequent water changes, so weekly partial water changes will help lower nitrate levels and the stress on your fish.