Snail Questions! Mystery/apple

[Sirron]

I recently bought 2 'mystery snails' and I have quite a few questions. I was looking through posts here titled apple snails, they look like what my LFS is selling as mystery snails. I thought apple snails were quite a bit larger and rather a menace to aquarium plants. Anyways the two that I found are a lovely pink thats pretty rare around here so I'd really like these guys to make me some more! A few things I've been told about them that i'd like to clarify are, that they only breed with their own color, they aren't male and female in the traditional sense but rather any two will make babies and they lay there eggs amongst the plants. An internet seach pulled up slightly different info, at least about the eggs. The website said you have to lower the water level in the tank as they like to lay their eggs outside of the water.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

That's an apple snail, alright. They do go by 'mystery' at times.

Apple snail is a name used for a few species in the trade, some of which are a menace to plants as you've stated and some of which couldn't care less about them. Yours is probably Pomacea bridgesii, a plant safe species as I don't think there are color morphs of the other species.

Since you're confused, here's a few things about your species:

• They have separate sexes.
• They lay their eggs out of the water, which take around a month to hatch.
• Different color morphs will interbreed. They're just a different color.
• Plant safe.
• Adorable.

Other species seen in the trade are P. canaliculata, a voracious plant eater, and rarer, P. haustrum, which is also a plant eater. They both lay their eggs outside of the water.

To tell the species apart look at the shell; If the 'steps' are at a nearly perfect 90* angle, it is P. bridgesii. If not, it's one of the others and not plant safe.

For more information look at this site.

Hope this help you.

 

[Sirron]

Is there a way to tell the sex of a snail or do I just need to find a few more and hope for the best?