Snail question, please help!

[beatricethecat]

HI! i'm new here, and have a bit of a strange question, perhaps.

a freind of mine bought a snail to take some pictures for a project and she left it with me to care for ( i wasn't a participant in the project, i just ended up with the snail in the end). as far as i know it came from a big tank full of water that was full of snails in an aquarium store, so i'm assuming its marine? said friend went away for the holidays, and the store will be closed until friday so i can't ask them.

I used to have a freshwater tank and have a few things lying around. i've put him in a beta tank with some gravel and filled it with water which is roughly 78 degrees. i also put in a heater and put a thermometer in ther eto make sure i don't cook him (its for a 10 gallon tank). i put in a little bit of sea salt, but i don't really know anyting about marine aquariums. he popped out of his shell for a bit, but has gone back in again.

can anyone here point me in a direction of how to properly care for him> i've done a bit of gooling and just come up with sites that say snails are good in tanks to eat algae, but none that say what to do with them solo. should i set up a marine like aquarium? will the water need to be aerated?

any help is muchly appriciated! i'd like to not kill him if i can help it.

thanks!

j

 

[Devilishturtles]

Can you describe what the snail looks like? What about a picture? IMO, chances are it's a FW snail, if you friend got it from a local store. To properly maintain the correct levels for a sw snail would probably be more work than she was looking for.

FW snails are not fond of salt at all, so you have a bit of a predicament.

 

[beatricethecat]

thanks!

i think you may be right....at some point the guy was all running around, then he sort of started twitching and went back into his shell. i couldn't tell if he had fallen over and was trying to get up or if he ate something not so good. i replaced the water, hopefully in the moring he'll be better. i guess my friend gave me the impresstion it was salt water oriented, but it does make more sense it would be freshwater.

its pretty big, maybe 1 1/2" and looks like this:

i'm afraid he may have ingested some salt and now it may be over. i had a flashback to some slugs in my cousins garden in maryland, and he put salt on one of them and it shrivelled up. we didn't have slugs in pittsburgh, so this was really weird to me.

i'm in new york city, do you think the snail could have come from the ocean?

thanks so much,

j

 

[theatrus]

Looks like a variety of Apple Snail. FW only. Munch on plants, so I don't keep them.

 

[Fluff]

Definatly get him in some fresh declorinated water. It is a fw species. Feeding shouldn't be a problem since they will eat just about anything. Fish food, algae wafers, fresh veggies, shrimp pellets, etc. You can also take out the heater if it's in a betta bowl. As long as your room temps don't fall below 50 he should be fine. They can tolerate cooler water, they just are not as active and actually live longer in cooler water. I hope he makes it for ya. Good luck.

 

[beatricethecat]

he's still alive!

thanks everyone for your information, i feel a bunch better now!

this morning he seems to have climbed up the side of the tank so he's donig OK. i'm gonna wander over and see if the pet food store is opena dn get some water conditioner stuff. i guess i should put some kid of lid on the tank, like some mesh, as he could get out, huh?

happy thanksgiving!


j

 

[beatricethecat]

just found an awesome website as well, all the info i could ever need!!!

http://www.applesnail.net/

j

 

[Fluff]

Yes, that is a great site and the mesh top would work. Good luck with your new buddy.

 

[DragonForce]

Another option would be to take him back to the store.