Snail Breeding

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lpn4

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
109
Location
Central Illinois
I one of the weird fish people who want snails, because I have a puffer tank. However, Petsmart and my 2 other Lfs only carry mystery snails, which all say that they don't breed very well. I have found a couple of websites that sells snails at a good cost. Can anyone tell me which kind of snails that I could get that could keep up with my puffers?
 
Pond snails. Get sone live plants and u usually find you've acquired a few and they breed like crazy
 
Okay. It seems that the "mystery snail" is a pond snail, but it does not breed very easily. Some other pond snails I have found are back-door Japanese snails and golden pond snails..aka, mystery snails.
 
Pond snails are definitely the most prolific breeders. MTS are pretty good for puffers to give them something to hunt since they burrow a lot. Mystery/Apple snails can be very easy to breed if they have the right set up. Get several snails, lower the water level several inches and you should get some clutches ! :)
 
I currently have 2 golden mystery snails, which seem to be classified as apple snails. I also have 3 darker snails, one resembled a back door, but not for sure. Anyway, my water level is below the top of the tank, and I have had these snails for a few months. Soes MTS stand for mystery snail?
 
MTS shell is too hard for the puff. I've heard bad stories with MTS and puffers. Just feed them the pond/mystery snail since they are the easiest to breed. Don't ask those LFS employees questions. Their info is not that reliable. I use to get mystery/pond/pest snail from Petsmart, but I stopped feeding my puffs snails.
 
Thanks Terrance. So, to further pick your brain, why did you stop feeding your puffs snails? What are you feeding them to keep their teeth at bay?
 
I think you have dwarf puffer, right? I don't think their teeth grow. I've read this on other sites, but its always debateable since everyone have different experience. I tried to be conservative and feed snails; however, my DP only go for the snail meat anyways and never bite at the shell, no matter how small the snail may be.

In the past, I bred my own snail, I have to make space for another tank (or salad bowl in my case) and change out the water every week and feed every day. It just seems like its more work and space. 1 pieces of frozen raw shrimp (or other crustacean seafood at the grocery store) can be sliced up into pieces and it will last 1 week. Thats pretty cheap to me. I even thaw it in FW vitamin water (Vita-chem) to add in vitamins into the diet. It just seems more simple/easier to do this. Although the shrimp is packed full of nutrients, I use Vita-chem as cheap insurance for a long healthy life (one bottle last a very very long time, so I hope to use the whole bottle before it expires! lol).
 
Good information, thank you. My dward puffers only nip at the snail meat as well. I have been feeding frozen tubifex, and am going to set up a brine shrimp tank, which doesn't seem like too much work. I have read a lot about the vitamins, but have not seen any on the shelves at my lfs yet.
 
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