That's it? That's not good. Click to expand That is definitely surprising. Maybe I could try and find one that won't. It'd sure look empty and kinda boring with Mystery Snails. I wanted to use it as a grow out tank for baby snails if needed as well. Guess I better rethink that plan This is one of those things that everyone has a different answer on. It partly depends on how much calcium you're willing to supplement. They're not territorial so as long as your nitrates don't get too high I'd say you're fine.
Well I plan on feeding them high quality algae wafers , zucchinI and spinach. I can also provide additional calcium if they need it. What would be the best way to do that? I also thought I'd throw in a bottom feeder wafer once a week for a little protein. Would adding some more live plants help? I can add some more Anacharis or something else if it'll help. I wouldn't even put one in a 5. It would be easy for them to completely overstock a tank even with just the one.
You could have an amazing cherry shrimp colony in that tank though and it would be full of color and life with black sand , green plants and bright red shrimp!
You can exceed this, but you will need to test your water and perform water changes appropriately. Adding plants to your tank will allow you a little more wiggle room - planting your tank, even floating plants will naturally filter your tank.
If you've seen our planted tanks, you will see snails, maybe more, and often their little itty bitty babies crawling around. They do great in here because 1. We Change Water frequently, 2. We test our water, 3. We have ALOT of plants - hornwort and duckweed are literal water filters. But if you don't have plants and you don't like to change water - keep your snails to what's manageable - remember 1 to 5 gallons. Will they eat my plants? Mystery snails are scavengers, they will always prefer to eat decaying plants and veggies over your live plants, if you see them eating on your live plants look closely, they can sense dying leaves and generally do a fantastic job of consuming them and in many cases saving you the trouble of having to trim the dead leaves away yourself.
I have on occasion had snails that developed a taste for duckweed, given the aggressive reproduction of duckweed you will never have to worry about any snail or group of snails putting a dent in your duckweed.
Will they disrupt my plants in substrate? Now and again they will dig something up. We keep a lot of them in a 65 gallon - think about 30 or 40 with a good amount of rams, angelfish, tetras and corydoras and the plants are usually fine.
Now and again you will see hornwort or anubias floating. Just replant them. It will be ok. Some people think that controlling the snail population in their tank is a simple matter of controlling the number of snails they buy. At the end of the day, if you have both male and female mystery snails in the tank, they will keep reproducing until their numbers overrun the aquarium.
This is technically the most straightforward solution. Mystery snails cannot reproduce unless you have male and female snails in the tank. Therefore, if you can restrict the population of mystery snails in your aquarium to a single gender, you can prevent the number of mystery snails from growing. However, this tactic only works if you can differentiate between male and female mystery snails, which is easier said than done, especially for beginners.
Generally, male snails do not grow as quickly as female snails. They also have a larger shell with a rounder opening and a penial complex on their genitalia. Beginners may have a difficult time identifying this protrusion. This is why you are better off asking the retailer to give you snails of a particular gender from the start. If they know what they are doing, they will prevent you from filling your tank with mystery snails of both genders.
Either way, for your convenience, here is an excellent Youtube video that explains how to tell the gender of a mystery snail:. Because they spend most of their time underwater, it may surprise amateur aquarists to learn that mystery snails lay their eggs above water. This keeps the eggs out of the reach of the predators in the water. Aquarists respond to this attribute by keeping the water several inches below the top and providing some perch above the water that the snails can use to lay their eggs.
You can leave an inch or so of space. This will keep their numbers down. If it is too late to take preventative measures because the snail population in your tank is already too large, you can remove the mystery snails by hand.
Pick the snails out of the tank, and keep taking them out until you are satisfied with the number left. You can give the excess snails away to people that want them. Some stores will buy snails from people if they like the price. Though, many aquarists prefer to kill the mystery snails. This allows them to feed the remains to the fish in the aquarium.
Bottom feeder tablets, flakes, or pellets will all enrich their diets. It is also known that these herbivores love vegetables. Leafy greens like lettuce or vegetables like zucchini, so long as they are washed and softly blanched. Just remember not to overfeed or leave food in the tank for too long. This could damage your water quality and lead to health problems for your inhabitants. As discussed above, making sure your snails have healthy, undamaged shells is very important. Keeping the pH high and giving them calcium supplements can help avoid this problem.
One of the most common parasites is Angiostrongylus cantonensis or Rat Lungworm. You probably guessed that the adult form of this parasite is found in rodents, but the larvae will use snails as a temporary host until growing into adulthood.
Grub Worms have been observed in aquariums where wild-caught snails were used. They appear as small, white cysts on the foot of the snail.
When ruptured, flukes parasites are released into the water column. This is a problem for fish as the flukes will encyst their flesh and can only be removed physically.
Grub Worms will stay inside the host fish until the host dies. Most problems however stem from their shells. This is one of the most important things to look at to ensure health.
It is possible to patch the shells of snails; however, this process is one that must be done by hand and very risky. Most procedures require you to take the snail out of the tank and apply some form of fish safe epoxy. Mystery Snails are gonochoristic which means a male and female must be present for reproduction. If you are looking to have more snails without going out and buying them, the breeding process is easy. Once the female is ready to lay eggs, she will lay her eggs above or at the water surface.
They will leave their eggs in a cocoon which makes them easy to spot and remove if you do not want babies. A single clutch of eggs could produce healthy adults, but they may lay multiple clutches around the tank, leading to many more.
Trying to hatch too many eggs may overload your tank and impact the nitrogen cycle, so only keep what you can manage. If they lay their eggs above the water the air surrounding the cocoon must be moist enough and eggs should hatch within a month.
Baby snails will then fall to the bottom of the tank and begin their lives, eating the same food as their parents. If you want your snails to breed, try lowering the water level a few inches to make room for them to lay eggs.
Also make sure there is plenty of food as they tend to spawn only when there is enough food to feed their next generation. When thinking about mystery snails for your tank, think about what you have in your aquarium. If your tank is full of vegetation and has a community of peaceful fish and invertebrates, then these snails are for you. They have few unique needs and do not necessarily need to be fed separately.
One of their best features is providing you a helping hand when cleaning the tank of plant particulates and algae from the glass.
This makes your manual cleaning easier and less frequent. All this means that these snails are perfect for both beginners and experts alike. It truly is hard for you to go wrong with them. This is why they have become one of the most popular freshwater snails for aquarium use. A quick look around any fish store will show just how common they are. Have you ever kept mystery snails in your aquariums at home, or have you seen them in your local fish stores? We love our snails and have 2.
They are yellow inca females and are definitely one of the biggest personalities in our tank. Ours are now 1. We have a white mystery snail. She has our attention. She is always performing these falls that end up gloding onto a plant and down a few steps of a house that we have in the tank.
If I could post a video, which I have of her in action. She is hilarious! I have one that does that too. Very acrobatic! Sometimes bounces off the plants, tumbles, no matter.
Cracks me up. I thought it took two of them? Was it pregnant over a month? Thanks, Robert. I have a few of these in different colors and love them. The males are aggressive toward other males and large adults will attack other smaller ones.
Planting with smaller moss in foreground and java fern, swords and penny white seem to make them very happy. Water condition is key to long life and in smaller than 10 gallon tank I suppliment with algae wafers.?? Hi, I just got a new black mystery snail but instead of an aquarium, I have a terrarium with no fish and just moss balls. You can supplement their diet with bottom pellets or flake food. I noticed a clump of something on the inside of my snails shell.
Any idea of what it could be? The snail is roaming around the tank just fine. It depends on the genetics of each one! There are possibilities for almost every kind of snail, but you will mostly likely end up with about half-and-half golds and females. If you have any wild-type snails or they were ever housed with one, be aware that they tend to favor sperm retention of wild-type snails for some reason?
Maybe they just prefer breeding with wild-types for camouflage? Would a snail do well with a betta fish? Also, how do the snails do with artificial plants? This will be a beginner tank for me. Hello, this sounds like an ideal beginner tank.
You can choose artificial plants as long as you feed your snails and shrimps algae wafers. I had a very with the snails and ghost shrimp but about two months in my very attacked and killed them all:.
I have a betta with a snail and they get along just fine. I had 4 ghost shrimp also in the tank but as soon as they got nice and fat my betta ate them all…. I had a betta with two snails, the betta killed them both. I hear it just depends on the fish though. I got my betta and mystery snail at the same time and held my breath.
I think the betta May have nipped off one feeler on the snail so I kept an eye out to see if the betta was harassing the snail, but he mostly leaves it alone and the feeler did grow back. I think it really depends on the temperament of the betta. The mystery snail is very active, climbing up and parachuting down the tank all day long. Love watching it and it is some company for the betta.
I know people say male bettas are solitary but without a chance to breed and raise babies as is their instinct, I think they can get bored. I know this comment is old, but wanted to reply in case others were wondering.
I have a 5-gallon tank with a betta, 2 beautiful mystery snails and 6 ghost shrimp. I also keep the betta well-fed, though. Brine shrimp and pellets. They love it. I also have 3 plants; crystal temple, melon swords, and micro swords. Hubz and I love to sit and drink our coffee in the morning and watch our tank. I always thought of snails as slow, but ours move pretty quickly! I have a 5-gallon tank with a beta fish. If I were to get a moss ball would that be enough food for a mystery snail?
My tank is brand new so I doubt it would have much algae. Hi Tara, moss balls are great but I would also recommend feeding them some algae wafers too. Our golden snails started of as a pair; we know have over 40 spread through 3 different tanks. The breeding pair have passed on but their offspring who are all different sizes due to their environment and tanks. You can really see how closely related to Octopus they are.
Water tension. Looks quite funny. Cheers Glenn. When Mystery Snails start breeding, they can put rabbits to shame!
0コメント