Ramshorns in BW?

[purplecandle]

I want to move my fiddler crab to my snail tank.

Fiddler is brackish and snails are fresh, but I have heard I can make them brackish.

I do not care if the fiddler eats the snails or snail eggs..i am going to stop breeding snails, I am having much better success with other hard shelled food. Plus only a few of my puffs enjoy the snails.

This would allow me to cut back a tank..

Would I need to acclimate the snails?

P.S. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, was not sure where to put it.

[judge6266]

if you are done with the snail do you really care? you can keep snail in light BW, a good way is to make the water really hard then use a little less salt, the crab will enjoy the hardwater and make up for the lower salinity

[purplecandle]

I do care, I wouldn't want to cause the snails a slow death..

[JRC3]

I've seen some of the ramshorns in my brackish tank for a few days after just tossing them in. I also found two pest snails in my filter when I cleaned it and they may have been in there for a few days, or up to a month, I don't know. My SG is .005.

What other shelled foods are you having success breeding that your puffs like?

And aren't fiddlers terrestrial? How will you deal with that?

[purplecandle]

I only have one female fiddler, my daughter brought it home from school last year.

I have the most success with blue snow crab legs and mussels.

[JRC3]

OK. I thought you were breeding something else besides the snails. I've tried mussel with no luck but I'll have to try the blue crab legs.

And I think the fiddler crab has to be able to crawl out of the water every once in a while though I don't know how often.

[purplecandle]

I hammer the legs until the shell pieces are about the size of a broken egg shell..they chew the heck out of it to get to the meat..

Yeah, I know the fiddler needs air...I have decor that lets her climb up and stay there if she likes

[RTR]

Yes, fiddlers are more terrestrial than aquatic, but do use gills, so do best in moist air with easy and quick access to water - light brackish is fine. Ditto for red-claws.

Most ramshorn and common pond sails will take light BW for some extended period of time. I have not tracked them above 1.003, but at that level they appear fine for weeks at least.

[purplecandle]

ok, thanks! I will start them out low and see what happens! Hopefully I can feed what snials I have left in the next couple of weeks..and then it will just be a fiddler tank..

I tried to make the fiddler's tank more terrestrial..but she just loves staying the bottom and digging in the sand..she very rarely wants to come out of the water..so I switched to more aquatic with lots of decor to hang out on..

[RTR]

They are as much biofilm grazers in the wild as anything else, and only the substrate and submerse ornaments carry biofilms unless the emerse areas are constantly wetted by drips or mists. So she may just be grazing much of the time. Many wild critters do spend much of their time in the search for food.