Anyone a good baby snail identifier?

[ColdKoi]

Found this little guy tootling around on the ludwigia today.

This in in my 10 day old 75gal setup. I’m thinking he rode in on the scarlet temple that was new to this tank, though surprisingly I’ve never seen any snails in the plant aquarium at our lfs (the ludwigia was moved from my 29g and had some tasty algae on it from the bloom a while back)

Of course I’m one of those “need one of every species” types. Just never enough tanks for them all I’ve got a pile of bottom dwellers in the 75 as it is, with plans of moving some to the 29g as those guys go out to the pond. It’s probably way to small to tell, but if it’s a species that’s going to overrun the tank in short order I want to nip that on the bud ASAP. Otherwise I wouldn’t mind leaving it to do it’s thing as all the fish in the tank are likely too small to bother it (if I move it to the 29g there’s one glutton in there that for sure could suck it up without any effort lol)

If I took a wild guess I’d say it’s a nerite?

 

[Dallascowboys16]

Found this little guy tootling around on the ludwigia today.

This in in my 10 day old 75gal setup. I’m thinking he rode in on the scarlet temple that was new to this tank, though surprisingly I’ve never seen any snails in the plant aquarium at our lfs (the ludwigia was moved from my 29g and had some tasty algae on it from the bloom a while back)

Of course I’m one of those “need one of every species” types. Just never enough tanks for them all I’ve got a pile of bottom dwellers in the 75 as it is, with plans of moving some to the 29g as those guys go out to the pond. It’s probably way to small to tell, but if it’s a species that’s going to overrun the tank in short order I want to nip that on the bud ASAP. Otherwise I wouldn’t mind leaving it to do it’s thing as all the fish in the tank are likely too small to bother it (if I move it to the 29g there’s one glutton in there that for sure could suck it up without any effort lol)

If I took a wild guess I’d say it’s a nerite?

That is a bladder snail (Physella acuta) which is one of the most common hitchhikers we get on aquatic plants. For the most part rather harmless. They can reproduce asexually so it only takes one to start making more. They will only really eat decaying plant matter and detritus so your healthy plants will be safe. Snail populations rarely get out of line unless you are dumping a serious amount of food into your tank. I enjoy having snails in my tanks and usually will leave what people would consider "pest species" in my tank. Nature is a balancing act and in my opinion more biodiversity in a tank is generally a good thing when it comes to snails and a little algae here and there. If you ever want to keep your snail populations in check, an assassin snail or two will go a long way toward helping you out.

 

[ColdKoi]

Awesome thanks. Been reading a little bit about them this afternoon and didn’t find anything about them escaping from the tank. I did notice when I was home for lunch that the snail was up at the surface by the rim of the tank, but shortly after he floated back down to the bottom

Just curious if these little guys are particularly escape artists?

There’s some gaps around the plumbing and a fairly large hole for the auto feeder (I just use the auto feeder when I’m away for work). I don’t really need snails crawling around the house when I’m not home lol

 

[Dallascowboys16]

Awesome thanks. Been reading a little bit about them this afternoon and didn’t find anything about them escaping from the tank. I did notice when I was home for lunch that the snail was up at the surface by the rim of the tank, but shortly after he floated back down to the bottom

Just curious if these little guys are particularly escape artists?

There’s some gaps around the plumbing and a fairly large hole for the auto feeder (I just use the auto feeder when I’m away for work). I don’t really need snails crawling around the house when I’m not home lol

I've never known bladder snails to leave the tank. I think you will be fine.

 

[ColdKoi]

Awesome. I see he’s hanging out on the top rim again when I got home, I’m good with that it doesn’t venture farther north lol

 

[ColdKoi]

Found another one tootling around the tank tonight, the invasion begins! Lol

After doing some more reading tonight I think I’ll be pulling them out of the 75g. From what I’m reading, they’re prolific breeders in the right conditions and this tank being a new setup I’m thinking they’ll get a little carried away when the impending algae bloom happens... at the end of the day, it’ll all reach equilibrium and things will settle down, but with the already excessive amount of bottom dwellers/algae eaters in the tank I’m thinking I’ll just leave it up to those guys to feast on it rather than a billion snails going to town and starving out the fish!

I’ve moved the one snail I could find over to the 29g comet tank which does have some algae starting to collect in places that the (common)pleco hasn’t been cleaning up. I plan on moving the other remaining snails to the 29g when I find them. Hopefully they can go to work on that tank and either the comets will keep them in check or they’ll die out once they’ve cleaned up what the pleco hasn’t been eating.

 

[ColdKoi]

Well I guess that went sideways on me. By next morning the snail in the comet tank was mia. I figured maybe it was hanging out somewhere I couldn’t find it as that tank has a darker substrate but still haven’t seen it days later. Either the comets ate it or it climbed out of the tank!

 

[Autumnsky]

The GF like to eat little snails, so probably was a snack. Also I had a pond with bladder snails and they would often come around the top but never noticed them going for a "walk". I like to have snails around in the tank, over feeding is the biggest issue to get an explosion of them as Dallas mentioned. Higher pH will also be a hedge towards more snails, but it's usually the food issue.

 

[ColdKoi]

Yes I believe he went down the gullet lol. The other one is still in the 75g for now, and although seems to spend a fair amount of time at the water line, I’ve never seen it out of the water. So that’s a bonus!

This area is pretty limited for selection at the lfs. I’d like to have larger snails like a mystery but they’ve been out of stock for 6+ months. An assassin snail to ‘fix’ any unwanted snail population isn’t available either. Not a lot of places are willing to ship live fish now either, and I don’t think I’d trust it anyways if they did due to the shipping delays.

It’s a long drive to get to the nearest city that has any kind of selection. Basically a 2 day trip unless you’re able to just grab what you need and get out of there within an hour or 2. Not a very economical source for $20 worth of fish or snails!

 

[Autumnsky]

Are you in the USA? If my friend still has Mystery snails breeding like crazy when it warms up we could see that you can get some. Literally had about 50-60 pea sized MS babies, from one of her 3 packages of excess snails and used 3/4 of them for Clown Loach food. I saved out a bunch of nice looking colors but I can't keep that many, and she told me to use them for fish food. She had 2 clutches additionally so we'll see, the snails seemed pretty busy!

 

[ColdKoi]

No I’m in Canada, northern Alberta. Closest place with any selection would be going to Edmonton.

 

[Autumnsky]

Good chance you can get a "local" hobbyist to share some of their abundance when it does get warmer. Snails are easy to ship and do very well even in cool weather.

 

[ColdKoi]

I’m sure there’s locals around, I just haven’t caught up with any of them yet. It’s pretty small place so chances are small but who knows.

I actually picked up my bristlenose pleco from a ‘local’ (only a 2 hour drive lol). It’s a 4h drive just to the nearest fish shop and they don’t even bring in bristlenose! Plants are even pretty limited at the shop but I’ve come across some more semi-local people that have some more offerings of plants.

I guess snails probably can handle a long shipment a lot better than a fish. But who wants to wait a week for possibly a bag full of rotten snails

 

[Autumnsky]

Kordon Breather bags are great or other way shipped was in damp paper towels! No problems. even in a week.

 

[ColdKoi]

I might give it a shot in the spring but this time of year it’s probably just too risky. They can end up sitting in the delivery van for way too long during the winter and I’d almost bet they’d get frozen solid at some point during the trip!

 

[Autumnsky]

Oh, yes, not now!

 

[ColdKoi]

Hmmm both snails seem to have disappeared now!


Not sure where the one in the 75 would have gone other than escaping. There’s nobody big enough in there to eat it.

Let’s say hypothetically that the other one in my 29g comet tank did get eaten... there’s one big glutton in there that could possibly have gotten it into its mouth but surely it would have choked or it would have plugged up it’s guts, no? Can they even digest the shell? The entire thing shell and all is nowhere to be found in either tank now!