The Puffer Forum

Hi everyone,,,,,,

I have set up a snail tank to keep my little f8 puffer with fresh treats, The trouble im having is that non of the local pet shops have any snails I have orderd 10 rams off ebay. Does anyone know where i can get others from?

Thanks

Garry

AquaBid. Many sellers do international shipping there.

i had some ramshorns off ebay - and others came with plants

i ordered tadpole snails aka bladder snails off ebay to breed for my gsp

lots off eggs in four days and one little baby snail that came with the 6 adults...

these are great for my gsp as he can crack the shells easier than the ramshorns, he just ate the snail and didnt bite on the shell at all!

Thing is though, you really want your puffer to crack the shell, because this keeps his teeth trimmed down, that's the benefits of providing snails for our puffers, and other crunchy stuff. So while the pond snails are good too, I'd also supplement their intake of snails with ramshorn, as they need to crack the shell in order to get to the meat -- in most cases anyway.

mine only crack really small ramshorn so i save my biggers ones to breed since theyre live bearers theres always lil rams running from me haha but I feed them the pond snails too. bigger they are they just slurp the snail out instead of chomping it.

Er, umm - ramshorns are egg-mass depositors, quite lie common pond snails. Are you thinking of MTS, Malaysian Trumpet Snails? Those are not suitable for feeding puffers, the shells are too hard and break the puffers dental plates.

HJTH

o0o0o i have loads of eggs hatching today, its very exciting!

even tho its only snails...

its like a mini explosion, and theres soo many of them lol =p

RTR wrote:Er, umm - ramshorns are egg-mass depositors, quite lie common pond snails. Are you thinking of MTS, Malaysian Trumpet Snails? Those are not suitable for feeding puffers, the shells are too hard and break the puffers dental plates.

HJTH

i thought that too about the eggs - and when i read that bit about them being live bearers i thought hang on a sec whats going on here -

Mhm. My pond snails lay clear to whitish eggs and the ramshorns lay creamish coloured eggs.

does anyone know if there is a rule of thumb with colours to whose eggs are whose ??

I started a snail tank last weekend. I got a fair amount of ramshorns from the pet store as they have an outbreak of them in one of the tanks. Bad for them, great for me. Anyway, I read previously you need java moss but it was $30 for a tiny piece attached to a rock. There was no way I was going to pay that much for a bit of moss and a rock. Do you suggest something else? I did purchase another type but I can't remember what it is. It's kinda hard and I just leave it floating on top of the water.

...I read previously you need java moss but it was $30 for a tiny piece attached to a rock. There was no way I was going to pay that much for a bit of moss and a rock. Do you suggest something else? I did purchase another type but I can't remember what it is. It's kinda hard and I just leave it floating on top of the water...

I heard the same thing about Java moss and went looking for some where I live. Same thing happened to me and there was no way I was going to pay that much for rock and moss. I tried using a fake plant (looks like Anacharis) and layed it on it's side. I threw some fish flake food, a cuttlebone and filled the water to just barely cover the entire fake plant and my snails are breeding like crazy. They are always crawling around it, breeding on it and laying eggs. If I take the plant out of the water, it is covered in snail eggs.

Give it a try, it may work.

Cucumber/zucchini works well.

I float anacharis in my snail tank. I occasionally crumble in algae wafers and give them spirulina flakes.

I have a Red Eared Slider turtle who is (to his dismay) transitioning into his "adult" diet, so it's a lot of plant and veggies for him! I always make a little extra for the snails. So my ramshorns also get smashed peas and corn, cubed and softened yams, red and green-leafed lettuces.

I have broken terra cotta pots in the tank, as algae seems to thrive on them. It's also a handy way to collect the snails when the time comes to sacrifice them to the puffers. I simply take a piece of terra cotta that has meal sized snails on it, give it a rinse in some clean water, then brush the snails off into the puffer's tanks.

I also have a 20gallon tank stocked with nano fish that has ramshorns in it. I've noticed that the snails in there spend a lot of time feeding on the algae that grows on the driftwood, so I have recently added some small pieces of driftwood to the snail tank.