Snail I.D.?

I found these adorable little babies in the plant tank (a.k.a. tank of death) at a Petsmart ( ) by us and convinced the girl to give them to me with my plants. They haven't nibbled on the plants at all (unlike the nasty cone-shaped ones that came with some other plants) so I really like them and they are gorgeous! They are (as you can see in the picture) kind of yellow with black spots. Any idea what type of snail they are? Thanx for the help!

They're beautiful! I love the pattern on their shell!

Sorry I can't ID them.

They are very pretty, though I don't enough about snails to give you an I.D.
The shape of the one on it's side reminds me a ramshorn, though. Do a google search or something. That may help narrow it down at least.
Sorry, not much help here. Ern

I have those too. The ones in your picture are juvenile Great Ramshorn Snails, Planorbarius corneus. The tend to get more brownish when they grow, but some of them do keep their dots. Their bodies are red thanks to the hemoglobin in their blood.

They do tend to eat plants, but if they are given some other food, they won't do much damage. But you should be careful, if you see torn leaves, it's their doing. But I love mine too and keep them in a planted tank.

One of my youngsters:

lol i will tell you what they are, are pest!!!!!
yeah i thought they were BRILLIANT lookin things, I had bout 5. Well its been 4 months, i now have bout 3000. As you can see, thats why i dislike them. But we all have opinions, and i agree they do look quite cool

Those adorable little things will overrun your tank and eat your plants if not kept in check - they're ramshorn snails and reproduce like wild fire.

unlike the nasty cone-shaped ones

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But these are the goodies - they're most probably malaysian trumpet snails. They won't eat your plants and they aeriate the substrate by burying themselves in it and overturning the gravel.

Great ramshorn snail's egg clutch is rather largish and easily detectable unlike some smaller snail species. It's transparent, round and flat, the eggs are transparent in the start but they get more whitish when they are maturing.

They look like this:


If you see them, remove them.

I am a bit weirdo and I keep all the pest snails as pets. They are my algae eaters and bottom feeders. I believe that if you keep them in control they are actually a beautiful addition to a planted tank.

lol how are you ment to remove them???
She means SQUASH them untill they are no more!
i have to squash at least 10 a day and somehow theres still millions of them.

samthefishman said:

lol how are you ment to remove them???
She means SQUASH them untill they are no more!
i have to squash at least 10 a day and somehow theres still millions of them.

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I wouldn't recommend squashing them. Apparently if you squash a pregnant female, the eggs go everywhere. So I guess that makes it worse and that's why there's still millions. The best thing to do is either get a snail-eating fish like a clown loach(only for large tanks) or put a slice of cucumber, zucchini, or lettuce overnight and throw away the snail covered veggie in the morning.

But I have never seen those snails at work. But if I did I would definitely take them. I have pond snails, ramshorn, and trumpet snails from the plant tank that I'm breeding to feed for my puffer. But they don't want to reproduce.

Wow... thanx for all the replies! I did a google search and I agree that they are Ramshorn snails. I don't have the heart to squash them. Or kill them at all... and they are already starting to breed. (Trying, maybe? Aren't they a little too young?) All those of you who are trying to breed snails, just feed them peas and cucumber and raise the temp to 84 degrees! (I found this out by accident when I moved them to the 2.5 gallon planted tank to treat the 10 gallon for parasites.) I noticed something was nibbling on my plants in the 10g, but I suspected the cone shaped snails. Btw- those are also breeding (trying to breed?) too. . I started putting semi-squashed peas and cucumber slices in and they haven't touched the plants since then. For now they will stay... maybe if I get puffers or loaches later on I can use them as tasty snacks!