Strange Acclimation-related Question

[Donya]

Sorry if this is off the wall, but it's been bugging me for well over a month and I'd like to know what everyone thinks about this. A while back I was told that there are people out there who regularly acclimate saltwater snails to full freshwater over a period of months. My first reaction was that this was completely bogus, given the marine inverts' sensitivity to sg. To my knowledge, there is only one family of snails, Neritidae, that has some species with freshwater populations (although I've found that not all individuals of those species can tollerate freshwater). Excluding that family of snails, has anyone heard of saltwater snails being acclimated to 100% freshwater? I'm just trying to figure out whether it's a myth or not, not in favor of it.

 

[RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah]

Ive heard the same thing, but also dont know if its true. I wonder how long it took them to breed bettas into being FW fish. The only place youd find them in the wild is the indian ocean.

 

[Donya]

I'd heard that betta splendens at least was from fresh to slightly brackish, mainly in rice paddy type environment. Where did you read that they were first marine fish?

 

[Navarre]

I have never heard of iny reef snail being acclimatised to fresh water. I amnot sure they would be able to biologically (althougfh i admit my knowledge is not great on this so i could be wrong). I would imagine that their food soruces would be totally alien and thus lots of survival issues would arrivise not even to mention osmosis.
As for Bettas being marine fish.. I have never hear of this either. There is a Marine Beta (Comet) but its a totally different Species to Betta Splendens (Marine beta is spelt with 1 "t" splendens are spelt with 2)

The Comet is in the grouper familt and is closer in reltaion to a cod than a freshwater fish. I could of course beon the wrong track here and have the wrong fish altogether.

 

[fish_keeper2]

Ive heard the same thing, but also dont know if its true. I wonder how long it took them to breed bettas into being FW fish. The only place youd find them in the wild is the indian ocean.

first of all they are fw fish and they arent from the indian ocean. they live in rice fields and pools of water through out thialand cambodia.

 

[Donya]

Thanks Navarre. That is what I had thought to, that the physiology would not allow the drastic change in sg, no matter what time frame it was done over. The Neritidae snails are the only snails I know of that can handle a wide salinity range, but they are fairly unique in that respect (they have other reproductive anomalies that do not occur much outside the Neritidae family). Purely freshwater snails have horrible reactions to even small increases in sg, so that it would be possible to go the other way doesn't seem likely. I am betting it is just a myth now if the salt water experts don't know of it being done successfully.

 

[RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah]

Hmm well idk where i read that but i guess they were wrong.