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  1. Donya

    Life after dinoflagellates

    It's been an extremely long time since I've posted anything to do with my tanks in this section. I've had two, 20gal nanos for years and years and had many beautiful successes with those tanks. I got bombed with dinoflagellates a few years ago after a move. No idea where they came from; maybe...
  2. Donya

    Nerite snail eggs

    If you try to remove Nerite eggs from the object they're attached to, it will almost certainly destroy them. Raising that species of Nerite is really tough because they don't hatch as snails but rather a swiming larvae, which requires significant plankton levels to feed them.
  3. Donya

    Snail shell turning brown.. Why?

    I don't see anything abnormal in the photos. The darkened spire is the body blocking light while the shell is translucent; the darker wiggly line coming out at the last whorl is the end of the digestive tract (so that's poop). If there is discoloration on the outside of the shell it'll just be...
  4. Donya

    High-Quality Snail Photos Needed!

    That'll be either Pomacea canaliculata or P. insularum. They are hard to differentiate below a certain size; P. insularum has both a much larger max size (around 4" or so) and gets a flat area followed by a sharper angle running along the spiral groove.
  5. Donya

    High-Quality Snail Photos Needed!

    Gyraulus - one of the definitely less common genera from Planorbidae!
  6. Donya

    High-Quality Snail Photos Needed!

    TFF needs YOUR freshwater snail photos! We are hoping to update as many entries as we can in the pinned Snail ID thread with high quality photos from TFF members. Whether it's pest snails or fancy ornamental snails, if you have clear, high resolution snail photos, post them here! Photo criteria...
  7. Donya

    I think the Water Department screwed up my aquarium.

    Can't speak for the pipe buildup hypothesis but I have lived in two areas that had serious water quality swings. Municipal water supplies can have crazy changes quite fast. The first instance I saw was KH & GH that shot through the roof in a matter of days after years of being really low. It was...
  8. Donya

    Snail ID

    Yep, something in the MTS family! Hard to tell the exact species from the photo but may be Tarebia granifera since thse are very common. They are parthenogenic and give live birth (ovoviviparous).
  9. Donya

    Can you keep mysis in freshwater?

    If they for certain came in saltwater, it'll be best to keep them in saltwater or whatever salinity it actually is if you want to keep them alive/healthy. I'm not recalling my shrimp taxonomy very well right now but I believe there are some freshwater shrimp in the same genus or family (or maybe...
  10. Donya

    What's this white anemone-looking thing in my tank?

    Sounds like freshwater hydroids. Whether they're a problem depends on what else is in the tank - they aren't a threat in most cases but can sometimes be a problem for very tiny things like fish fry and small inverts. If you are breeding shrimp in that tank you will want to remove the hyrdoids...
  11. Donya

    Planning my first reef tank

    That's not a good design for a sump. Sumps need to be long side-to-side to be maximally useful. If money isn't the main factor in the choice then definitely yes, getting something already designed with sump in mind will save you a lot of hassle. That tank has a built-in intake/overflow to let...
  12. Donya

    Planning my first reef tank

    The skimmer you posted fundamentally has to be in a sort of sump, in which case if you are doing a sump it’s better to maximize the sump size for the space you have and skip canister filters. All the stuff a canister can do a sump can do better if configured right. The main benefit of a canister...
  13. Donya

    Please help ID this baby snail and some tiny, white creatures...

    Potamopyrgus! Or some spelling like that. The genus of the New Zealand mud snail but could be a different species within that. I think that was the spelling…brain always starts working properly after hitting the post button.
  14. Donya

    Please help ID this baby snail and some tiny, white creatures...

    Oh that shell looks familiar…particularly that little ridge running along the whorls. but I don’t think it’s in the snail list that was linked. Someone else had these a while back and it’s driving me nuts I can’t remember the ID. Common name was a something mud snail I feel like…arg. I’ll have...
  15. Donya

    3D printer

    To add onto this, one thing I don't see being mentioned is that there are 2 types of consumer-available 3D printers: filament and resin (not counting other weird stuff like the ones that work with metal dust and lasers, etc.). Only do this kind of test with filament printers. You can also use...
  16. Donya

    Whats this Mystery Snail doin?! Help!!

    Probably has a bubble in the mantle cavity that he's having a hard time expelling because of the orientation he's ended up in and because he's not smart enough to realize that he needs to close up hard to expell it. If he stays floating and stuck for more than a couple hours, gently move him to...
  17. Donya

    What do baby assassins look like…

    The small, reddish snail on the right in the last picture is a Planorbid ramshorn.
  18. Donya

    2.5g Tank and Stocking--Contradicting Online Sources

    Don't do bamboo shrimp in a tank that size - too big max size and they are filter feeders, which is a category of critter that is generally just very difficult to support in a small system without horrible waste management issues. Smaller shrimp like cherries can be kept in small tanks with some...
  19. Donya

    Small snails started popping up

    Had to look up what one of those wizard snails is...dingy name fads make IDing hard (not a comment to you, just my frustration with the snail market trying to make things sound new and different every time I look again lol). From topics I saw I think the wizards are a type of viviparid, which is...
  20. Donya

    Is my new crayfish dying?

    The new skin should harden up after a day or so unless something went wrong with the molt. I'm not sure how long it's been separated at the time I'm reading this post. If you saw movement, I would leave it for 24h before calling it to give it a chance but the odds aren't great given the...
  21. Donya

    Mystery growth near base of coral

    It's the blur and oversaturation that's making it hard to figure out I think, not so much the angle. Can't tell what shape it is really or where the opening is if there is one (or more than one). A short video clip like colin sugested might get around that if it's high enough res; sometimes...
  22. Donya

    Mystery growth near base of coral

    Pic is still too blurry to make out. If you hadn't said it was hard it looks vaguely like some sponges/tunicates in terms of globby shape but I'm guessing that's just an artifact of the blur then. Is you've seen a "claw," does it move rapidly? If it whips in and out, then barnacle. If it just...
  23. Donya

    Spixi snail

    A. Spixii shouldn't eat other live snails except in very unusual circumstances (starvation can cause weird behavior in any apple snail) so it should be fine, and that looks right from the photo. If there are reports circulating of them eating snails, I would suspect it's down to confusion with...
  24. Donya

    Spixi snail

    Are you meaning assassin snails? Unless mislabeled, a "spixi" snail should mean Asolene spixii, which is a type of apple snail that has a diet basically like other apple snails (vs assassin snails which are predators).
  25. Donya

    Uninvited guest

    Need a picture to ID. Some snails are better than others. If it's Physa, it could reproduce rapidly if there's food source. If it's Lymnaea that's a lot less risk and more beneficial.
  26. Donya

    Racing snail… not the Nerite variety…

    What's your tank temperature? Warmer water = more active for snails. If it's the only one doing that, then it may also just be exploring looking for food since it's a new environment.
  27. Donya

    Golden Snail??

    Oo - just realized you didn't say what the others look like. I was just assuming brown version of the same species, since Helisoma anceps is the dominant ramshorn hitchhiker in the united states. However, you could also have two different species of Planorbid ramshorns. I feel like that's...
  28. Donya

    Golden Snail??

    Ramshorns have color genes that can be turned on and off, similarly to apple snails and why those come in such a ranbow of hues, although for Planorbid ramshorns the combinations are somehat more limited. This one appears to have the brown shell pigment turned off while having brown on the body...
  29. Donya

    Apple snail

    Looks normal to me. The shell seems held normally from the pics . Apple snails have a regular calcareous shell (the spiral part) and an operculum (the dark oval part). The operculum is attached to the foot but is not part of the shell if that's what's worrying you. All looks fine to me.
  30. Donya

    Help needed with hermit crabs !!!

    Good point about the land vs marine. I thought I was seeing two narrow walking legs + a claw on my phone earlier which would typically be a marine species but now I'm on my PC I'm not so sure. Could be one large flat leg + claw of a Coenobitid.
  31. Donya

    Help needed with hermit crabs !!!

    If you have a pet store near you with a saltwater section take it there immediately so they can get it in the right water and care for it rather than waiting to take it back to the beach. If no such store is around, you need marine salt mix for marine aquariums, not the sort of fw salt used to...
  32. Donya

    Snails for 1g tank??

    If the bladder snails are Physa acuta, they easily get out of control unless there is a predator. They are pretty riddiculous in their capacity to become a pest. For ramshorns, it depends on the species. Helisoma anceps typically reproduces readily, but I have kept them both as cleaners in small...
  33. Donya

    Cracked shell in mystery snail?

    They are also risky, even if the risk is small. It's rare, but you can get them with embedded bits of tissue that start to rot once wet and oh my lord the smell when that happens - I speak from experience unfortunately. Happened twice and then I never used them again. That was a long time ago so...
  34. Donya

    Snails for 1g tank??

    FW Nerites are good for really small tanks. They're tiny, don't breed in fw except with a lot of deliberate care for it, and frequently kept as snails in shrimp tanks. All Nerites require high KH and pH though and you have to be a bit cautious with species since sometimes there are more strictly...
  35. Donya

    Cracked shell in mystery snail?

    Just drop the feeders in. They should sink and get snail attention if you don't add other food for a bit. To maximize how much they get nibbled vs just dissolving, if it's a big feeder block you can also break pieces off and just add those as they are eaten. Back when I had apple snails and used...
  36. Donya

    Cracked shell in mystery snail?

    Hard to tell for sure but looks more like a scratch or growth line than a crack. Those can happen from rubbing against things in the tank and then having a growth spurt. Outer shell layers don't heal - once the protein layer is gone it stays that way. Don't feed crushed snails; most likely they...
  37. Donya

    Eel in freshwater tank

    Hmm well, from a bit of quick reading it sounds like "freshwater morays" are actually more brackish to marine and don't live in full fw their whole lives. So the common name is perhaps a bit misleading.
  38. Donya

    Eel in freshwater tank

    There is a species called the freshwater moray, although I know nothing about them beyond that they exist. I assume that's what is in the video if it's in fw. Other moray species are strictly saltwater and should be kept at full marine salinity.
  39. Donya

    Which type of snail?

    Ornamental snails with thicker shells like apple snails and Nerites need a higher pH >7.0 or the shell will be damaged at an increased rate. Too long in acidic water and they will get pinholes in the shell and will have difficulty calcifying the area to repair it. The smaller Planorbid ramshorn...
  40. Donya

    Aquatic Fertilizer and Snails

    Also worth noting that toxicity of copper to inverts (snails included) depends on pH. Low pH increases toxicity while high pH decreases it (ornamental snail species need >7 to avoid shell erosion). 0.0001% sounds small but the conversion to ppm is x10,000, so 0.0001x10,000=1ppm. Now, of course...
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