Snails

[goldielocke76]

Anyone know about how long the life span of the pond snail is? It seems like I am having a hard time breeding them, and I am not sure why. About a week or so ago, I saw a bunch of baby snails hanging on the walls and what not. Now I see a bunch of dead adult shells and the babies are no where to be seen. Not sure what I am doing wrong, but it would be nice to get a tank full of snails before I get my puffers. Any tips or suggestions?

[ILoveLola]

On your sig it says your snails are kept with your ghost shrimp. Is that still the case? Shrimp will eat the snails & their eggs...

[goldielocke76]

On your sig it says your snails are kept with your ghost shrimp. Is that still the case? Shrimp will eat the snails & their eggs...

Wow really?? Omg. I should have asked here first instead of listening to the damn lfs...

[xrayjeeper83]

Yep my ghost shrimp did that, along with my crayfish.

Ideal a snail breeding tank should be snails only

[goldielocke76]

Thanks guys. Looks like I need to restock on snails. I really had no idea....lesson learned.

[Nuclear_Glitter]

Don't feel bad. I originally was trying to breed snails in my betta's tank. Turns out he is one of the meanest fish I own lol. He would attack the HUGE snails and eat them, along with the eggs.

[RTR]

Learning is rarely painless. The hard-learned lessons we all share do tend to stick with us.

[goldielocke76]

RTR, that is true, I can remember more of my school work when I struggle through it and make mistakes, then I do just by memorization. Sure makes tests easier.

Snail population has EXPLODED!!!

I have tons and tons of little ones all over the glass....the ramshorns do not seem like they are doing well, but the pond snails are just thriving since I took out the ghost shrimp...LOL

[RTR]

That is one reason why I keep each snail type separately in breeding tanks. Common pond snails are hugely prolific, and you can generate masses of smallish feeders. Ramshorns require larger water volumes to get big, and it takes longer. I tend to culture them in veggie filters where I can better control the population numbers. Really large common pond snails are uncommon to rare in smallish tanks as well.

HTH

[J-P]

RTR, that is true, I can remember more of my school work when I struggle through it and make mistakes, then I do just by memorization. Sure makes tests easier.

Snail population has EXPLODED!!!

I have tons and tons of little ones all over the glass....the ramshorns do not seem like they are doing well, but the pond snails are just thriving since I took out the ghost shrimp...LOL

LOL!! I started an entire breeding colony off one snail There is an ebb and flow to the breeding process. You'll get the hang of it and soon you'll have a steady production line of appropriate sized snails.

[goldielocke76]

My exploded snail tank:

http://denzil.smugmug.com/Pets/Puffers/ ... Cbgmd-A-LB
http://denzil.smugmug.com/Pets/Puffers/ ... 8Z5JR-A-LB <-- all those little specs you see, are snails. And, I have tons more egg gels.

[DrKennethNoisewater]

i need to get a pond snail tank..... i rarely see the ramshorns in my tank anymore except for super tiny ones. TRUMPETS EVERYWHERE!

[goldielocke76]

i need to get a pond snail tank..... i rarely see the ramshorns in my tank anymore except for super tiny ones. TRUMPETS EVERYWHERE!

Yeah, that's my problem-- I can't find them anywhere and the last 4 that I did get, just plain ol' died a day after I put them in the tank. I told my bf that when we had our own home, I am going to have 3, 10 gallon breeder tanks-- one for ponds, one for rams and one for cherry shrimps LoL. I would love to upgrade their tank, but as it is I already have 4 in the apartment. I don't know where I would put a 5th...LoL and Denzil would kill me.

[goldielocke76]

Just wondering what your water changes on your snail tanks were like??? Do you do all of the water? Partials? I empty mine every week or so and vac all the s***t up and try to save as many snails as I can....problem is, is I tend to miss more than I save, and I know a few egg gels went down the drain = /

I have decided to get a "book shelf" aquarium from Petco (http://www.amazon.com/Petco-Bookshelf-F ... 789&sr=8-1) It's a tad expensive, but, I can get in to it easier and can fit nice HOBs on the back. I am just tired the one I have, it's hard to get into, a b***h to clean, and making me dread my water change day because it gets so nasty. That being said--

I was thinking about buying two 10 ac's or 2 20s. I was thinking two, because I am afraid that if I put one big one, the flow and suction will be too much. And, the tank is 2 feet long, so I thought that this would even out the filtration and make my snail life much easier. Then I won't have to pull the whole tank out to take off the top to gingerly reach my hand into the tank to grab the nearest snails to feed to Luau. I am getting a GSP as well, so it can't take forever to feed them in the morning, and ughh, I need to be able to access more of the tank period.

**edit** guess do 2 20's as it seems like they don't make an ac 10 hob? I thought that they did...

After reading all this, what do you guys think? What should I do for filtration, and depending on my filtration, what size of water changes should I do? Any help and advice is appreciated, as I am sick of my current snail set up. Please and thank you very much in advance!

[J-P]

If you are bare bottom I just siphon the feces out with an airline hose.

From there I just let it drain the tank about 50 ~60% and refilled it. Was rather easy.

For filtration, I always used air sponges on the snail tanks. With HOBs I found that feeding was a PITA as the food would get sucked up before the snails got to it.

The only snail tank I had an HOB on was my assassin snail tank.