Poor Gary

[50000_tears]

do you have a friend w/ a clown loach??? ..they will become good friends

 

[eudielynn]

do you have a friend w/ a clown loach??? ..they will become good friends

ARRRGGGG!!! Run Gary!! RUN!

 

[alabaster]

6 inches! Thats pretty big for a snail! How much wre they at your LFS? I'd probably pay $15-$20 for a 6" apple snail! I have a relatively small 2 1/3" apple snail, and I think he's hibernating. He comes out when I feed him cucumber, which he loves. I think he's either hibernating or hiding, since all my mollies harass him when he comes out of his shell. Could I put him with my betta in a 2.5g if I changes the water every second day (e.g. CLEAN, DONT CLEAN, DONT CLEAN, CLEAN, DONT CLEAN, DONT CLEAN, CLEAN, etc.)?
If I did that, would my betta (male)pick on him like the mollies do? Are mollies usually vicious toward snails?

 

[BettaMomma]

NO!! No loaches near my little Gary.

Yeah, I can't believe they get 6" either, but that's what the site said! eek! At the pace Gary's going, though, he could get there no problem. they also said that warmer water speeds up their metabolism, making them grow faster, but it also significantly shortens their lifespans from 3+ years to 1 - 2.

I'd have to say that as long as you keep your water clean then it should be just fine to keep a snail in that size tank - and, of course, as long as there is enough to eat. I'm gonna keep Gary in the 2 gallon I have

One thing to watch out for with snails and bettas is that bettas like to go after feelers and rip them off, because they think they're food. I saw some of my girls trying to go for Gary's. He learned pretty quick that if he felt anyone anywhere near by him to pull EVERYthing inside his shell til they left. After a while they got bored with him and left him alone.

 

[WILDER]

Bless him, misses the betta girls.

 

[50000_tears]

loaches are cute..dont you just wuv those wittle faces at the store when you see them..i think they are wittle cuties ..but im a werido


see wook at the wittle kyoot face

 

[BettaMomma]

Well, more bad news on the homefront today.
This morning I was half awake when I wandered into the kitchen to see something laying on the kitchen floor. It was Gary. He had crawled up out of his little tank, wandered across the counter and free-fell 3 feet to the floor. His shell had a piece cracked off of it. I picked him up and put him right back into his tank. He didn't move much at first, but he was starting to stretch out his body when I had to leave for work.

Anyone have any ideas about what I could do for him?
I'm going to go post on the snail board, too, but I thought I'd ask here since a lot of you have snails in your tanks too.

Poor, poor little Gary.
I guess he was just trying to get back to the big tank. I can't say as if I blame the little guy...

 

[newfishies]

gary sure seems to be into these extreme sports!

 

[BettaMomma]

Yeah, and unfortunately he got pretty severely injured on this one.

Maybe I should rename him to something like Tony Hawk.

 

[eudielynn]

Not an expert, but as the mother of three snails I have twice found pieces of snail shell in my tanks. I don't know if a fish pecked them off or if they broke off some other way. Both times it left a good piece of snail "flesh" exposed. But I believe the shell is basically for protection. I took them out of the tanks with the fish and put them in smaller containers for a few days with just clean water to ward off infection. Both have new growth now and are back in their tanks.

I thought about asking you if you had a cover on his bowl because they can climb out very easily, but I guess I had a brain fart and forgot to mention it. Sorry about that.

 

[BettaMomma]

It's okay. lol
I had him covered until last night, when I did his water change and forgot to put it back on. So it was my fault.

I'm SO very relieved to know that they can grow their shells back. I can't even tell you how horrified i was to ONCE AGAIN find one of my little guys in a bad spot. It was terrible.

I just stood there though, and said... "Gary, Gary, Gary - what HAVE you done this time?"

There should be a new soap opera created called "As the Snail Crawls".... starring... Gary!


He's a goober.