The Puffer Forum

From previous posts, I've set up a 5.5 gallon snail breeder tank and have had nothing but problems since. First it was algae as I had it on a window ledge. So far this week I've emptied the tank at least 3 times in order to clean it and start over. I now have it in another room, have put in a heater and filter, as well as removing all the dead and what appeared to be dead snails. I need to get this done properly if I'm to get them breeding and to have enough for my GSP. I threw out most of the snails this morning and am starting off fresh...yet again. I kept the ones I know are alive as they were clinging to the tank or onto something in the tank. Boy, do dead snails smell bad. Anyway, my biggest problem is feeding them. I read about them eating algae wafers, cucumber, zuccchini, but I have no idea how much to put in. I put in a slice of cucumber on the weekend, removed it the next day as not one went near it and then algae was forming all around it. After my last cleaning on Monday, I put in an algae wafer, it eventually went soft and made the whole tank a mess which is why I emptied it completely this morning. I really need some advise on amount to put in and do I leave it in there or remove it? I feel like an idiot for not being able to control a small tank like this when I have no problem with my 120 gallon. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Smaller tanks are harder

I am guilty of overfeeding my snails and shrimp. I feed too often I think (working on cutting back) and I put in an algae wafer and a NLS wafer or some crab and lobster bites. Or I'll do half a NLS wafer and some crab bites.

I am trying really hard to grow algae for the snails and shrimp to eat but nothing. It's a few feet from a wall of glass, I leave the light on about 12hrs per day, and no algae. I've got algae in the other tank but none where I want it. I've got some moss in there, I wonder if it's just doing a really good job at sucking up nutrients. Perhaps I need to move some into the other tank

I have heard/read that they like carrots...old carrots that have been in the water a while (a few days).

In fact, I have read a lot were they like vegetation but won't go near till it has been in the water a while.

Give it a try at least a carrot won't go all mushy like a cucumber.

Overfeeding is IME the worst thing you can do to any tank. It dooms the tank. Nobody can keep up with the maintenance of a grossly overfed tank - whether fish or snail housing.

In a 5.5, a fraction of a wafer period, nothing else until that is long gone.

If you put in fresh/blanced/frozen & thawed veggie in the evening, remove any remains the next morning. Use what you remove to resize the next potion. After 12-18 hours, it is pollution, not food.

HTH

How long after the food is gone should you wait? I try to feed every other day (now).

Thanks everyone for the help so far. I'll give a carrot a try now. There's not that many snails in the tank at the moment and I just gave one to Puff Puff. I'll be picking up a bunch more at the pet store tomorrow. Thank heaven they have snail problems, bad for them, sweet for me. I totally agree on the overfeeding but I don't want them to starve as well. The algae I was getting was white fluffy stuff that made everything slimey, not to mention unsightly.

I just put some carrot in, the thing floats. Hopefully it will sink eventually.

I found steamed or boiled spinach leaves to be very quickly eaten by snails; it's very good for them and high in calcium.

tell us what works, I am starting my own snail tank..and would love to know for sure the answers to your Q's

Spinach sounds yummy!

Thanks Nick, I'll be picking up some spinach tomorrow.

I use spinach as well, but we use it in a lot of dishes for us, as well as salads, so it is usually in stock.

My spinach handling: Cookie sheet covered with waxed paper (masking or duct taped holds it to the backside), spread out spinach leaves and freeze overnight, then crumble into small baggies, zip and store in the freezer. A pinch to some fish (rift cichlids love it),a pinch to the snail tanks.

Dark lettuces can be handled the same. No iceberg - very low food value.

Cukes - same handling. Punch out the seeds and toss them, store the slices frozen and pin down with a rock or veggie clip.

Zucchini -same handling.

Small pieces of non-citrus fruit get the same handling. Apples, pears, peaches, mango, what ever you have in any excess for yourself is worth trying - or for us if the mango is sub-par and pear not so tastty, or the apple past its prime, the snails do not mind and the plecos go ape.

HTH

I've had my snail tank for a few weeks now in a 1G ice cream pail from safeway, and am in the process of moving it to a larger tank. I'll share with you some of my experiences and hopefully they can help you out.

One thing i'd like to mention and suggest is to be aware of where your snails come from and what was in the tank the snails were in. I've read on some forums that snails from your big chain pet stores can carry diseases. This may cause some of the problems you are having with maintaining and raising a snail tank. If you are also feeding these snails to your puffers, I would definitely make sure these snails are clean and healthy.

When I first started the tank, I put in about 2-3 cups of water from my established puffer tank. I put the snails in with a fake plant and treated the snail tank like any other fish tank, regular WCs, feed every other day etc. I never kept it in the sun, I don't want to deal with an algae problem, I just have a lid on it and when I turn on my other tanks in the morning, I just open the lid to to my snail tank for light. Now I just change the snail tank water like my fish tanks (Get a big old slurpee cup, fill it with water and water conditioner (I use a drop or two of seachem prime), suck up the all the "crap" with a turkey baster, examine the "tank"/pail for anything "unusual", then put the now room temperature water into the tank).

As for the floating food problem. Freezing them overnight then letting them completely thaw out, and putting them into the the tank will make them sink. This method of freezing then thawing them will make them sink. Almost any vegetable will do this. You can try blanching (boil some water, throw in your cucumber/zucchini/etc, for a few seconds then taking them out and placing them into a cold water) your veggies will make them sink OR tie/use an elastic on them to a rock.

For feeding, i've used a mix of foods. Fish flake food works good for me, I grab a pinch and grind it up as much as possible in my fingers as I put it into my snail tank. I haven't had much success with zucchini/cucumber, but I keep trying. I've had great success with snail jello (I think i mentioned this in another post and I will post the recipe for it today, sorry been real busy trying to find work), when I put snail jello into my tank within 30 min all my snails are all over it. I've never tried wafers yet, i've kinda used snail jello instead. Make sure you put some form of calcium in there. I know these snails are for your puffer, but you still want them to grow a bit and a lack of calcium could kill them. Use a cuttle bone (Bird section in your pet store), tums tablets, etc.

I feed every third day to keep the population down. I went crazy at first and fed them everyday to "jump start" their breeding cycle and now there's over 20 little snail babies running around in the small tank (hence the upgraded 10G tank soon). I usually keep food in the tank for a maximum of two days, after that it starts to really pollute the water. I perform 80% - 90% water changes every day to two days.

I've read water temp should be around 76'F - 80'F.

Sorry for rambling on and on and sorry if I repeated anything! Hope this helps, now to dig up/post that snail recipe...

Snail recipes have been posted under "general discussion". Maybe someone could sticky it

How do you know if you're overfeeding? Food never lasts in my tank for more than a few hours, definitely less than 8.

All I use is algae wafers, and I guess it's working because I have MTS, ramshorns, and pond snails coming out my ears.

These are great suggestions, thanks everyone.