The Puffer Forum

Hello.

I'm trying to breed two red ramshorn snails. So far they seem to love spinach, but I'm preparing a more complete diet for the snails with baby food and gelatin. I read some recipes for jello snail food use calcium and vitamin supplements for reptiles. At my LFS they only have Exo Terra brand multi vitamin and calcium supplements, and each of them contain copper sulphate at 2 to 2.5ppm. Would it be best to not use these multi vitamins and calcium supplements? or is it safe for snails if used in small amounts?

Copper is a required micronutrient for most vertebrates and invertebrates. It is also a toxin for the same critters, depending on the levels of copper.

I would not use any supplement containing copper for snails - either to help them or to kill them.

Many of the common snail-killing additives are copper-based. They may or may not kill the snails. They may or may not kill other inverts. They may or may not kill fish.

Not in my fish tanks. No thank you.

Gelatin also contains copper.

A 7 gram package of dry gelatin contains 0.2mg of copper, according to one source, or 0.1mg copper per 9 grams of dry gelatin, according to a different source . I don't know how to calculate that into parts per million, but it looks high to me. If this is correct, then we shouldn't be using gelatin in snail food.

For comparison, fresh spinach contains 0.000667 grams of copper per pound... a much lower concentration than gelatin or the reptile vitamin/calcium supplements.