Mystic54

What are some choices I have for calcium for my snails shell?
I have tried spinach and cuttlebone, he wasn't interested in either.
I have him in a 5.5 gallon tank

coffeebean

you can try other green veggies. mine really love zucchini. i keep cuttlefish bone in all my tanks tha thave snails. you may not see them actually munch it but from what i understand, the calcium just being in the water is good for them

Butterfly

OR go to www.applesnail.net - on the left hand side click on discussions(may have to register to see -don't know) scroll down to snail care and in there are recipes for home made snail food. Swilkins sent me some with the snails i got from her and they love it. it has a calcium supplement in it.
Carol

griffin

another option would be to get some calcium sulfate/calcium carbonate powder. you can mix that with whatever other ingredients you want to feed the snails, add some water and let it set. my snails/shrimp love the blocks, and they're fairly easy to make. i could let you try some of mine if you're interested.

rainman

crushed chicken egg substrate.

SWilkins

I just did a round on my snail tanks and dropped them all some calcium tablets (people calcium tablets) in and some of the calcium blocks that you get the recipe from on applesnail.net They attack as soon as the stuff goes in. In all of the recipes I have made for mine I have added in crushed calcium tablets. You can also use the liquid calcium I think that is made by Kent not sure on that. When I made the cookies for them it calls for the eggs with the shells altogether. There are loads of ways to get more calcium to them just keep trying those calcium loaded veggies too...might have to blanch them first for the picky eaters but that is about it...mine will eat them raw or blanched.

Mystic54

What is blanching?

And I might try the calcium tablets and/or a custom made food for him.
He's a picky little thing lol
I feed him sinking shrimp pellets now which he LOVES
Do you know if the vacation feeder blocks have calcium in them? I think I read on the ingredients that it says "calcium sulfate" which I'm not sure is actual calcium or not.

SWilkins

Blanched is just dropped into boiling water for a few minutes and then cooled immediately to soften slightly. The vacation feeder blocks are great but if you look on the above stated website you will find a recipe for the calcium blocks I was talking about and it is basically the same thing as the feeder blocks but they only cost you pennies to make where you would pay $2-3 a piece for them in the store. Very easy to make and once they are dried (5-7 days) just store them in an airtight container and you are good to go. I added some crushed calcium tablets to those too just for good measure LOL.