Can An Upside Down Snail Right Themselves

r5n8xaw00

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This maybe a ridiculous question and common sense would say no snails cannot upright themselves.
But I am not 100% sure so thought I would ask.

This is what happened to bring me to asking this question:

My poor Black Racing Nerite snail was minding his own business munching on algae on top of the ornamental mountain. I decided to adjust the heater, so when I took it off the hooks, it slipped.

Bamm it hit my snail knocking it off its mountain. I didn't notice this for an hour or so, but when I did I found him laying there upside down. Picked him back up setting him back on his mountain and waited to see if he was ok.

Had me worried there for about an hour as I didn't see him move, but not much later he started moving again. So he is ok.....
 

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This maybe a ridiculous question and common sense would say no snails cannot upright themselves.
But I am not 100% sure so thought I would ask.

This is what happened to bring me to asking this question:

My poor Black Racing Nerite snail was minding his own business munching on algae on top of the ornamental mountain. I decided to adjust the heater, so when I took it off the hooks, it slipped.

Bamm it hit my snail knocking it off its mountain. I didn't notice this for an hour or so, but when I did I found him laying there upside down. Picked him back up setting him back on his mountain and waited to see if he was ok.

Had me worried there for about an hour as I didn't see him move, but not much later he started moving again. So he is ok.....
You kinda just answered your own question. Lol. If you had to pick him up and put him back in an upright position, then chances are they wouldn’t be able to turn themselves over if they fell upside down. Sometimes our water pets need their human to help them besides feed them and give them a fresh batch of water once a week.
 

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You kinda just answered your own question. Lol. If you had to pick him up and put him back in an upright position, then chances are they wouldn’t be able to turn themselves over if they fell upside down. Sometimes our water pets need their human to help them besides feed them and give them a fresh batch of water once a week.
Guess your right, I did already answer my own question. lol...
 
Mystery snails' bodies can come farther out of their shells than nerite snails, so mysteries can right themselves no matter what. If nerites are at the right angle, sometimes they can, but most of the time they get stuck.
 
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My Black Racer is the first snail I have ever had. I have found I like snails. They add a lot to my enjoyment of my tank.
I am going to do some research on mystery snails, and I might get a couple.

Thanks for the info....
 

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I lost my last Mystery Snail by him landing on the edge of a pot, and the groove between the front of his shell and the big round part took a really hard hit. He was stuck for a bit and then leaked some green liquid and died. It was a glass bowl I was using as a pot. =[ So pretty much Mysterys can get stuck sometimes.
 
Nerites can absolutely right themselves. I have a video of it if you want to see!!

The problem is that it is very time consuming for a nerite to flip itself over. So if there are any fish in the tank, they are vulnerable because almost their entire body has to come out of its shell.

Because of this...many nerites choose not to right themselves because they are too scared to. In which case, maybe they try it at night? I don't know. But I can almost guarantee that this is not the first time your snail was upside down.
 
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Nerites can absolutely right themselves. I have a video of it if you want to see!!

The problem is that it is very time consuming for a nerite to flip itself over. So if there are any fish in the tank, they are vulnerable because almost their entire body has to come out of its shell.

Because of this...many nerites choose not to right themselves because they are too scared to. In which case, maybe they try it at night? I don't know. But I can almost guarantee that this is not the first time your snail was upside down.

Cool, thanks for letting me know.....

I have found my new nerite is a good cleaner, he eats algae so fast and the sides of my tank are cleaner then I could ever get them myself. But I am starting to worry that he will eat the algae faster than it will grow back and not get enough to eat.

I have dropped algae wafers in the tank for him, but so far I have not seen him eat those. The corys do they go crazy for the wafers, which is something I didn't expect.
 

Random Great Topic!

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