GuppyLog || Comments || Can anyone figure out what kind of water snail I have?

New to Guppylog?
Immediate Help

Conversions and Calculator
Conversions and Tank volume calculator

Add yourself to our guppylog map
Guppylog Members

* Change as much water as often as you can! *
Inkmaker

Front Page · Everything · News · Ask Guppylog · Diaries

Can anyone figure out what kind of water snail I have? | 4 comments (4 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Would the first type be the Columbian Ramshorn (none / 0) (#1)
by unclescott on Thu Jun 09, 2005 at 12:36:46 AM PST

snails? They are beautiful but eat plants like nobody's business? A few in a well lit Najas tank of livebearers works. They will eat the extra flake food or frozen foods and then go back to the Najas. The Najas is such a fast grower, that under good light, they may keep ahead of the snails. ;)

Take a look at
http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Bug,%20Snails,%20Colombian%20Ramshorns.htm

Your second snail sounds a little like the Malaysian livebearering snail or the Malaysian trumpet snail, Melanoides tuberculata. If this is the one you have, it is beloved by plant and aquatic gardening enthusiasts because it burrows and moves the gravel around. This keeps foul pockets from forming in the gravel. The sudden movement of gravel, especially at night, also causes selected aquarists to re-evaluate whatever they are drinking when a large section of the gravel lurches to the side. ;)

They will not eat plants, but they will eat any untouched flakes and most other fishfood items. This makes them great in livebearers tanks. It makes breeding egglayers almost imposssible, because they will crawl above and through the gravel at night and eat every egg laid by the egglayers, except maybe for cichlid eggs, guarded by the parents.

These tiny carnivores are amazingly prolific. Aquarists who think that they have just a few Malaysian livebearering snails will come back to the tank an hour after lights out and find 100s or 1,000s of snails on the aquarium glass. They are also almost impossible to get rid of. Basically all gravel must be thrown away and the tank bleached. Sometimes that works. ;)

See
http://www.fishpalace.org/M_tuberculata.html
http://www.cincikillies.org/Malaysnails.html
http://faq.thekrib.com/snails.html

If these are not the snails you have, we'll try again. :)

All the best!
uncle scott

Re: Would the first type be the Columbian Ramshorn (none / 0) (#2)
by molliesnguppies on Thu Jun 09, 2005 at 04:20:04 PM PST

After seeing some pictures, I think you correctly identified the ramshorn, but the Trumpet snails arent the same ones as mine. Mine do kind of pop out of nowhere, like the trumpet snails, but their shells isnt quite as pointy. Its shell is a little bit more rounded but still coneshaped, it also dosent have little ridges that show the spiral in the shell.

[ Parent ]

Ok, let's try again. :) (none / 0) (#3)
by unclescott on Fri Jun 10, 2005 at 03:48:23 AM PST

I'm guessing that you have common pond snails of the genus Physa, a widespread genus with many species. If time permits, take a gander at the sites mentioned below.

Here are some of Rhonda Wilson's shots:
http://naturalaquariums.com/inverts/snails.html
Any possibilities?

On the bottom of the next page is an example of Physa. Mine are all black and not as attractive, but pop up from time to time and are no problem. The site has a bunch of other snails I'm not at all familiar with, but take a look at the common pond snails on the next page. I remember a lot of these, while (as a junior high student) perched on a log in my favorite swamp - now a housing development. :( And they had the coolest amphibians swimming around in there.

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/jack_burch/index_0060.html

Click on the black Physa from the search page below. These are less than 1 cm or 1/2 inch, that is about as big as they ever get. The great William Innes praised them 70 years ago in his Exotic Aquarium Fishes, but did admit they could get a bit numerous.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Physa+snails&spell=1

The following site also was stumbled on. There are some really neat shots of Apple snails (which I would not trust with plants.) Yesterday, while tearing down a lot of tanks, I found an apple snail graveyard, way behind everything, where some of them must have crawled after eating everything when I had them on hair algae patrol (years ago).

I guess if one has apple snails, they must cover the aquarium top just about as thoroughly as they would with swordtails or killies.

http://sunrisecreek.net/Desktop/Aquarium%20Snails/

All the best again!
u.s.

[ Parent ]

So how did your snails match up? :) (none / 0) (#4)
by unclescott on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 12:17:15 PM PST

All the best!
u.s.

[ Parent ]

Can anyone figure out what kind of water snail I have? | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Display: Sort:

Menu

· create account

· F.A.Q. For Newbies!

· Immediate Help For Newbies!

· search

· Scoop Info

· Our Tanks

Login

Make a new account

Username:

Password:

create account | faq | search