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Snail ID and questions

How many snails will be in my tank in 3-4 weeks?

  • 0

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 1

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 2-4

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 5-9

    Votes: 1 14.3%

  • 10+

    Votes: 6 85.7%
  • Total voters
    7
Essjay said:
The side view looks more like a ramshorn, but not one of those tiny ones I have as they're reddish. It may be that you had an egg/newly hatched snail of one of the larger species. You'll have to wait and see just how big it grows :)
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If they are ramshorn, is it normal that their shells are semi-transparent? My water is pretty hard, gH 9 kH 7, so I don't think the water is too soft for them or lacking in calcium. I even had plans to soften the water more for my betta, but I'm not sure the snail's tolerance. I initially wanted to cut my tap water with RO or distilled and gradually bring it down to gH 5 kH 4. Would that be too soft for them?
 
Valkyrie_Lips said:
If they are ramshorn, is it normal that their shells are semi-transparent? My water is pretty hard, gH 9 kH 7, so I don't think the water is too soft for them or lacking in calcium. I even had plans to soften the water more for my betta, but I'm not sure the snail's tolerance. I initially wanted to cut my tap water with RO or distilled and gradually bring it down to gH 5 kH 4. Would that be too soft for them?
Click to expand...
most small snails have semi-transparent shells. I wouldn't worry about it.
 
WhistlingBadger said:
I think ramshorns are the coolest looking of the common aquarium snails.
Click to expand...

I like the bladder/pond snails more, they zoom about the place, and their heads are pretty cute! MTS are useful, but I find their heads/bodies emerging really creepy looking...

We need a "which pest snail is your favourite" poll. Could we have a poll please? :D
I'm thinning out my MTS today, they've reproduced a lot in one tank. But also found some dark shelled pond snails that came with my pseudos and the moss from a fellow hobbyists tank, and I'm happy to have them! Hoping those ones survive and stay around. :)

Valkyrie_Lips said:
You got me! So far the count is up to 2. Any bets on how many will be in the tank in a couple of weeks?
Click to expand...
We need a poll for that as well! :lol: I'm gonna bet 8-10. Especially since I know you'll be feeding them ;)
 
Please vote in the poll, you guys! @Valkyrie_Lips you'll have to set a reminder to come back and announce the snail count results in 3-4 weeks ;)

@WhistlingBadger Proof of snail life, to show I'm not a snail hater! :lol: They must have arrived as eggs with the psuedos a few weeks ago, but I only found a few of these recently, and have been looking after them because I wanted bladder snails again, and these guys have dark, patterned shells. I like 'em! d:D

DSCF0642.JPG
 
EDIT: this post is in reference to the FIRST pic in the thread. I now see there's a second (didn't see that when I wrote the text below)
-----
I'm going to guess Helisoma anceps*, which is very common in the north american aquarium trade. Medium-sized individuals typically have a "corner" of sorts on one side of the aperature that reults in a ridge going around the whorles, but it can be subtle. Sometimes the angle is lost as the snail reaches larger sizes. The species commonly shows a few different color variations:
- Brown to reddish brown, the wild type. The body is red due to haemoglobin in the blood but pigmented brown on the skin.
- "Blue," which is a darker, wild-type body but with an unpigmented shell that takes on a blue tint as a result of the darker body shining through.
- Red with brown shell. Body is super bright red since it lacks the darker pigment.
- Red with white/clear shell where smaller individuals can have a whiteish appearance but as they grow the red shows through more. This one is very hard to distinguish from the one above until they have grown a bit.

The body in the shell is often speckled/dotted but sometimes not. There is also a trait that shows up sometimes for yellow body spotting in the species - yours might have that but hard to tell from the photo. They can be very pretty when the speckling is dense.

There are also some Planorbella species that make their way in but they lack the hard angle on the aperature, the whorles are more densely packed (more of a proper spiral whereas H. anceps flares out faster) and many don't fare well at higher temperatures.

*Me calling this H. anceps is based on IDs for these that were made back in the early 2000s and there has been some upheaval in snail taxonomy and IDing since then. It's possible I'm out of date on that since I haven't gone to look to see if snail folks are still calling it by that name ("it" being the snail that comes in all those colors).
 
Valkyrie_Lips said:
I recently got a lovely surprise with my elodea plants, anyone know what kind of snail this is? I'm thinking ramshorn. Will it reproduce in my tank? I literally know nothing about snails. So far I only see the one but I really don't want an infestation since the tank is only 5 gallons. No idea how he/she survived the salt treatment I was doing in the tank for over a week, but my betta hasn't noticed it yet or doesn't care. It's so tiny but such a poop machine my god, I swear it defecates more than my betta.

Any special care instructions? I don't clean my plants often so it's been munching away on the algae on the big leaves. I have both real and fake plants btw, mostly anubias hastifolia. I saw it the other day and put some bug bites in front of it which was gobbled right up. Will it have enough to eat with the algae on the plants or should I add a little bit of extra food once and a while for it? My betta eats one granule at a time so I don't have any wasted food in the tank.

Oh, another question! I saw a little bubble inside of it's shell since it's transparent-ish, is this normal?

View attachment 165950
Click to expand...
Beautiful little ramshorn! But don't feed it! You get hundreds within weeks. I love mine. 🥰
 
Alright, it's almost been a month. Drumroll please..............

One snail passed away and if there are babies, I can't see them. That brings the total to one, which is a number I am happy with. I will say though, that snail has grown quite a bit. It's shell definitely looks larger, and I think it's turning an opaquer ivory-ish color.
 
Here's an updated pic of Gary. I have a few more questions. His/her antennae look like they have been damaged, likely from my betta even though I haven't seen her attack him. I'm going to remove him to prevent my betta from attacking/injuring him more, so what is the minimum size tank for 1 snail?

Aside from the injury, does he/she look healthy? Is its body supposed to be that pink? Does the shell look healthy?

Also, does anyone know what species my snail is? Or do I have to wait for him to grow more to ID?

Gary.jpeg
 
Valkyrie_Lips said:
Here's an updated pic of Gary. I have a few more questions. His/her antennae look like they have been damaged, likely from my betta even though I haven't seen her attack him. I'm going to remove him to prevent my betta from attacking/injuring him more, so what is the minimum size tank for 1 snail?

Aside from the injury, does he/she look healthy? Is its body supposed to be that pink? Does the shell look healthy?

Also, does anyone know what species my snail is? Or do I have to wait for him to grow more to ID?

View attachment 167757
Click to expand...
Thats a ramshorn snail. Its a pest.
 
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