Silly question. I’ll give a bit of background first. I found a snail while performing a bio experiment on pond plants and decided to take him home. I was only recently able to ID him as a bladder snail. I’ve had him for over half a year now. He is thriving in a clear bottle (as in the kind with, yknow, a bottle neck - small opening) with gravel, pennywort, and duckweed. As a side note, the duckweed is taking up too much of the little system’s nutrients and will soon be removed. As another side note, if anyone is questioning why I wouldn’t put him in my main tank at this point, it’s because I’ve seen my ghost shrimp shoving their mits in ramshorn shells for food too often.
Anyways, I’ve got an upcoming project for which I have to make a mesocosm. That is, a completely closed system. Given my bladder snail’s hardiness, I think the species is a good animal candidate. The mesocosm will include a substrate, conditioned water, healthy bacteria colonies, and likely pennywort as the plant. But before I seal anyone up, I wanted to get some feedback. Will a little snail give enough CO2 to keep a plant alive? And will a little plant give enough O2 to keep a snail alive?
Anyways, I’ve got an upcoming project for which I have to make a mesocosm. That is, a completely closed system. Given my bladder snail’s hardiness, I think the species is a good animal candidate. The mesocosm will include a substrate, conditioned water, healthy bacteria colonies, and likely pennywort as the plant. But before I seal anyone up, I wanted to get some feedback. Will a little snail give enough CO2 to keep a plant alive? And will a little plant give enough O2 to keep a snail alive?
