The Puffer Forum

I can't seem to find small snails to feed my puffer, Elvis.
Does anyone orderr them online, and if so, where?

usually you can just ask someone who works at your local fish store if they have tiny snails you can feed to your puffer. They often times will give them to you for free because they tend to become pests in a lot of tanks. I have gotten some at Petsmart before.

I have not tried Petsmart yet, I will go tomorrow morning, thanks!

no problem Let us know if they had them!

or buy plants and look for egg sacs on them

I only have one live plant in my tank now. Its FW, Elvis will be moved to his own BW tank within the next two-three weeks.
No snails! But, I do have a pond outside covered. I don't know if I have the guts to feed any to Elvis though.

QT them for a generation.. with heavy water changes

you should be fine

or better yet ... take some put them in a bucket in a warm room and only take the eggs and put those in a separate tank.. that is 100% safe. RTR can tell you more, but I am overly cautious when it comes to snails. Apparently most nasties can not be transfered if there are no fish involved in the breeding process of the snails, but I still will take eggs only and culture them. Just me.. maybe not the norm

I've gotten snails from wilmasthecause.org and plantedaquariumscentral.com. I'd recommend the former for feeder snails - ponds and ramshorns.

I strongly agree with J-P's comments - do the same for any new-to-you snails, especially from the chain stores. They need an isolation period for QT without any contact with water containing fish.

I also second the suggestion of getting snails from Wilma. She got her start of Dwarf Neon Rainbows from me. I trust her, but would still QT anything new-to-me.

I love that her snails (last I checked) were state-certified disease-free! I still quarantined them (heck, I'm quarantining some bettas that were a gift from a friend that he spawned himself - ANYTHING new, no matter how trustworthy the source, gets quarantined over here), but I felt SO much better about them. I know for a fact that both fish stores in my town are completely and utterly parasite-infested, every single tank, even in the one that doesn't have central filtration. I try to avoid getting anything from them that I can't load up with anti-parasite meds - shrimp, snails, etc.