hi there

i have read a few articles now on apple snails and spoken to different pet shops and everywhere seems to say different things so i am completely unsure as to the proper care of my surprising little batch of snails.

we bought a new snail for the tank and only a few days later she laid her eggs and being that i only keep a snail in my aquarium as a 'cleaner' i have never had to deal with babies before. one pet shop told me i can feed them things such as spinach, zucchini and other green vegetables then another told me to feed them some form of dry, shrimp food along with a calcium block in the water. now being the paranoid little thing that i am, i only want to do what is going to insure the survival of our new family members.

most of the eggs hatched yesterday and due to an unfortunate accident today, the remaining clutch was killed. however i still have around 100 little babies (or as close as i can count anyways :)) and on the advice of my local aquarium i bought a calcium block, put some java moss in their tank, which they seem to enjoy and further to that i have crushed up the fish food i use in my tank (tropical fish food).

i am also unsure about the size of the tank i should leave them in safely. at the moment i have them in a container about 1' by 6" and about 3" deep. i have half filled this with water from my aquarium. i also dont know if its better to have them in deep water or shallow water.

so far everyone seems to moving around quite happily and chewing on the lettuce and java moss i have put in their home. however i have had a couple of deaths although im sure this is normal considering the sheer number of young. or i hope anyways :)

is what im doing ok or is there something i could be doing better??

thanks in advance for your time

emily :)

Mystery snails are apple snails. The site http://www.applesnail.net is the best web site on these snails which should answer a lot of your questions.

It can be hard to get the apple snail eggs to hatch in aquariums because the eggs are laid above the water line. Is that what you had? If not, then you don't have apple snails but some other kind of snail.

The baby snails aren't picky about food. They'll eat most fish foods including ones with plant and animal matter. They should have more plant than animal matter. Some species of apple snail eat plants while others rarely do. Both should enjoy algae and sinking plant-based fish foods such as sinking spirulina wafers and other foods made for plecostomus catfish. Some apple snails will eat various fruits and vegetables. Start with cucumber (split and deseeded) and maybe some romaine lettuce to see if they like either of those.

Baby apple snails grow pretty slowly, at least in an aquarium. The more room they have, the more food they have, and the warmer that it is, the faster that they grow. They should be kept warm, at least 70 degrees F. Your "tank" for them is very tiny. You'll need something bigger soon. I don't consider 3" (versus 1.5") to be deep at all. I would add more tank water to the baby snail container so they have more room in which to live. Apple snails can take in some atmospheric oxygen so they need to be able to crawl to the surface but I think "too deep" would be over 1 to 2 feet.

Adding a source of calcium is good for the snails to help build their shells. In addition to whatever kind you are using, cuttlebones, oyster shells, and crushed coral are all things that will leach calcium into the water.

It is normal for 10-20% of a batch of snails or fish that do actually hatch to die simply from things out of your control such as genetic problems, incubation problems, and so on. If you get 25% of the babies to survive, I would say that is very good. They will grow fast and eventually need 10+ gallons per apple snail so I hope you can find a home for them because I just know you will have a bunch survive!

yes it is an apple snail. i refer to it is golden mystery as that is what they told me its name was when i bought it. the eggs were about 4" about the water line and pinkish in colour.

i have a rather large yet flat-ish tank we were going to use for keeping turtles but i think i will use that as their new home. its the same length as my main tank but about 1' high and a has more width than my main. does this sound better? the water line then would definitely be less than a foot, just. if this is still to small i have another six foot tank that is divided into 3 parts i can also use this as it is not in use at the moment.

as it is summer here at the moment the water temp seems to be hovering around 27C - 28C. im not sure what that is in farenheit.

i have spoken to the pet shop where i purchased the snail and seeing as they are a huge pet shop and that she was already pregnant when i got her, they are willing to buy them back from me at 50c each once they are old enough. i felt considering i bought the mother for only 3.00 this wasnt too bad.

i think im starting to get the hang of this so im off to start organising tank space.

thank you
not so paranoid anymore snail mum

;)

emily here again registered now

as i was setting up my other tank for the snails, i wondered how it is i am supposed to move the ones attached to the side of where they are at the moment. the container i had them in has the original container they fell into when hatched submerged into it in the hope that everyone would make their way out of the container. however about half of them have come out of the container and the other half seem happy sitting around the water line in the original container.

this one can be lifted out and put in the new tank but the ones that are stuck to rocks or the side im not sure how to safely move.

also should i put an air stone or small filter in the new tank or not.

It sounds like you're got a lot of nice tanks at your disposal! Yes, certainly the larger tank would be an improvement. I would put them into the "turtle" tank. When they're larger, you will have an idea if you need to put them into the 6 foot tank based on their size and how many that you have. You will probably sell them while they're still pretty small.

27 degrees C = 80.6 degrees F
28 degrees C = 82.4 degrees F

That's pretty warm!

I'm not really sure I understand your question about moving some of the baby snails. Where exactly are they? In a small container? You can pick up the baby snails as you would any snail. Just grasp the shell with your thumb and index finger. Be sure not to squeeze as the babies are small enough that you could break the shell. Once you pull up a little, they should release their foot from whatever they are stuck to and pull their bodies up in the shell. If they are on rocks and such, you can just move those to the new tank with the snails still attached.

yes we have been collecting tanks whenever we come across one that is being given away or going cheap. we have a website where i live called freecycle and people are always giving away cool stuff and i figure when you keep fish a few extra tanks could be useful.

what i meant by the snails was this...when they were hatching i used a small tub to catch them in so they didnt go into the tank. at the time all i could find was a kids lunch box. once they were all out i immersed that container into the larger one but most of them hung out in the small one and i didnt know if i should or could pick them up myself. however yesterday i decided to try this and succeeded. the turtle tank is set up now and on last count there are 82 babies. i came out this morning and there were a few dead ones but they seemed to be the significantly smaller ones of the batch. but those left are eating everything in sight :) they have stripped clean a bunch of java moss, eaten their way through a chunk of cucumber and pretty much demiloshed some lettuce i put in there. might be my imagination but they seem to have grown a decent amount already.

thank you for all your help and guidance if this happens again ill be more able to deal with it without asking everyone in sight a thousand questions :)

what age are they old enough to sell back to the pet shop? also what age do they become sexually mature and able to breed?

p.s. is the water too warm? i have always read/been told that anywhere up to about 28C is fine for the fish i keep.

it is very warm here all year round apart from a winter lasting about 3 months however winter here is still about 21C during the day and if we are really unlucky it will get down to about 11-12C at night.

they have all seemed to thrive in these conditions. the snails water according to the thermometer is the same as the main tank

It sounds like they are eating machines! Since they're eating well, and it's warm, they may be large enough to sell when about 4-6 months old, perhaps sooner. In more temperate climates, they usually aren't mature until they're over a year old. The exact ages at which they reach a certain size or maturity depends on temperature, diet, and setup. It seems you have them on the fast track! 28 degrees C is warm for the snails but certainly not too warm.