BettasfortheBabe

I thought you might get a kick out of these photos - the snails have sort of a "herding" mentality, and do this simultaneous trek to the surface every few days to refresh the air in their lungs. It's pretty fun - they are kind of like aquatic cows

See that plant floating on the surface? Its plastic - the snails got so heavy that they snapped it right out of its base. How does hot glue hold up in water? I would like to just reattach the plant to its base, but have never don't a hot glue gun job for something that is submerged all the time.

The snail in the lower right hand corner is bigger than you think - the distortion from the glass doesn't do him justice - he is extremely heavy, and the broken plant is totally his fault.

Swimmer does love his snaily tankmates.
Anyone want some snails??

Attached Images

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Lucy

Wow, that is some herd. lol
I tried one snail with Cami and she attacked it right away, she'd probably go crazy with that many. lol

BettasfortheBabe

This many snails is a pain in the butt - they create a ton of waste, and while they do a decent job of keeping the tank clean, we have had to re-evaluate our filtering system. The baby snails have a date with the snail tank at our LFS - their growth is getting slightly out of hand. They are so fun, though.

We are now using an under-gravel filter, and doing a 25-50% water change once a week and a full on tank empty and scrub and vacuum every 1.5-2 weeks so the snail poo doesn't compromise the water quality (we currently have a good system figured out in which we are able to clean while still keeping the integrity of the water and its parameters, eliminating even a mini-cycle). Swimmer has no idea how spoiled he is.

In the meanwhile, we have had to move our female to a separate tank. She keeps getting by the divider, and this past week he tore her fins up pretty badly - she is now in her own tank, and seems slightly unhappy about it - but it's for her own good.

Lucy

Oh, tricky little girl huh? PFP had that problem with her bettas sneaking by the divider. Good thing you caught it before someone really got hurt.

What kind of snails are they?

BettasfortheBabe

They are "Gold Inca Snails" - they are an apple snail, like they mystery snail, but this species has been purebred by our specialty LFS and will grow MUCH larger than your typical mystery snail. Our favorite specialty fish store ONLY breeds their own snails, and has had no outside snail contamination for years and years. If they breed, which they do prolifically, they will only every produce gold inca or albino apple snails.

Out of the 30 or so baby snails that hatched and lived, 10 of them were/are albino, and we turned a decent profit on those.
We never really intended to be accidental snail breeders. I suppose thats why its an accident. HA.

I feel bad for our poor girlie fish - as torn up as she is, she seems so "sad" in her own tank. She's eating well, though, and seems as active as ever despite her mangled fins.

aquarist48

Hello. You have a very nice tank! I would like to suggest instead of using hot glue for your plant to use aquarium silicone then you won't have to worry about what side effects the glue may have. Love the snails!

Phinny12

Love those snails ... I wish I knew more about them .. I am learnig..
betta over the divider! Once they figure out how to do it they will do it all the time...smart little buggers

Amanda

Man, no one around me sells good snails. They're all dead, or half dead. I had a mystery snail a long time ago, cute little thing!

Beth1965

My being new to fish keeping have learned soooo much. One really surprising thing for me is the attraction I have found in snails. I never knew how fast they can move, I just really like watching them do their job. I love yours.
Beth

thumper

those are some cool looking snails and that is a funny site to see them all going to the top at the same time

agabr123

lol, what a cute picture!

CHoffman

LOL..Water cows..lol..They are the neatest little creatures. Very smart little buggers too.