snail advice

[sassymare]

One of my big mystery snails

[ptran]

One of my big mystery snails

Is this guy eating your plants?

[sassymare]

I have never had a mystery snail eat any of my plants. My ramshorns eat plants but usually only the dying leaves.

[ptran]

Is mystery snail and apple snail not the same?

[Crush]

I thought they were but I'm a newb to snails.

[sassymare]

I’ve never been able to find a clear answer on that since it seems like everyone has a different opinion. The closest I have found is that they are in the same family of snails, but that the ones sold as mystery snails are Pomacea bridgesii or Pomacea diffusa. Apple snails are Pomacea canaliculata and they grow very large and are banned from many states. They come in many different colors such as yellow, blue, white, and purple. P. canaliculata eat plants while P. bridgesii or P. diffusa do not. Applesnail.net is a good source of information on them.

http://applesnail.net/content/various/recognize.htm

[Fancyfish]

All snails in the Pomacea family are considered apple snails but not all eat plants. The current aquarium trade 'mystery' snails do not eat live plants but will eat dying/dead plants. I think that many years ago the aquarium trade 'mystery' snail was P. canaliculata. Applesnail.net is an awesome source of all sorts of information on these snails.

You mention not messing with your pH several times, but I didn't see what pH you are trying to maintain. An acid environment and snails do not play well together. That could be what is going on with your snails shells. While feeding them calcium may help, they really prefer a neutral or hard environment. I used reptile sand in some of my snail tanks and sea shells in others. I've fed calcium tablets, and I do feed Ken's pellets with calcium. The tanks that have the sand or shells do fine. The other tanks I get pitting in the shells because there are too many snails in the tank and they pull all the minerals out of the water quickly. And the food doesn't give them enough. You can see the type of damage it does in this picture.

[VividAquatics]

Heads up! If you microwave it in water for 4 mins and then ice bath for 1 min it will sink to the bottom of your tank and takes away any cloudiness you get from it floating!