Tropical Aquarium Fish

Water Hardness

Most snails do best in harder/alkaline water. If the hardness/ph drops below a certain point, their shells will start to dissolve and/or grow improperly (the behavior seems to be based on species). Malaysian trumpet snails seem the hardiest, showing little adverse effect from soft water. The Ramshorn snails shell will start to dissolve, and gaps will form in the new shell growth. Mystery snails will form gaps. Most of these problems can be corrected by hardening the water, and the snails will recover, although exterior shell damage (from dissolving) will remain.

Types of Snails

Malaysian trumpet snail

The Malaysian snail, Melanoides tubercularia, is an interesting creature in that it lives in the substrate during the day and only comes out at night. Its shell is a perfect cone shape and gets to about 2 cm long. It is a livebearing snail and reproduces quite readily. It is considered beneficial to a plant tank and doesn’t seen to harm plants, even in large populations. They are hard to find for sale, but usually come for free on plant shipments. If desired, Clown loaches will keep them and other snails well under control.

Ramshorn Snail

Ramshorn snails are very common and come in various sizes. Their shape is as their name suggests. The smaller varieties (under 1 cm) are not too damaging to a plant tank, although they seem to relish the tender leaves of the Hygrophila family.The other type is the dark and light brown striped Columbian Ramshorn that can grow big as large as 2 inches in diameter. The stripes run the length of the shell with a pattern of random width light-dark- light stripes that stays constant throughout the snails life. These snails are extremely prolific and have a terrific appetite for plants.

Pond Snails

Pond snails are football shaped snails under 2 cm in length. They are to be avoided, as they will happily eat all your plants.

Mystery (Apple) Snails

One of the most beautiful kinds of snails are the Mystery snails. These snails have a shape similar to the Pond snail, but their spiral is rounder, and they grow much larger. They can reach tennis-ball size if well taken care of. The come in many varieties. The snail’s body can be dark, or almost albino (very light with a bright orange speckle pattern). The shell can be dark, bright orange, albino, or multi-colored striped (length-wise like the Ramshorn). The Apple snail variety typically has the multi-colored stripes, with a dark body. In general these snails don’t eat living plants. They prefer algae and dead plant/animal material (canned spinach will get you a very large Mystery snail).

Snail Prophylactics

To guard against unwanted snails, use a weak potassium permanganate solution. The Manual of Fish Health recommends a concentration of 10 mg/l as a 10-minute bath as a general disenfectant for aquarium plants. Then rinse them in running water. This kills snail eggs and parasites and might guard against algae spores.Alum is also useful. Get “Alum U.S.P.” at the drug store. Soak the plants in a gallon of water that has up to 10 teaspoons of Alum. The Alum kills microscopic bugs. Longer soaks (2-3 days) will kill snail eggs and/or snails.

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In fresh waters there are some bivalves called fresh water shells. Even if they differ from the salt water shells, they are relatives with salt water shells. Fresh water shells stay totally or partial stuck into the ground. In order to feed, they filtrate the micro plants from the water. This kind of eating can be useful in an aquarium because it may stop the overflow of algae. Instead, if the feeding is wrong, they can die and that`s a risk of pollution because you can`t observe that immediately. You can rarely see this kind of bivalves in our freshwater aquariums, because tropical bivalves are very rare on the market.

Some Gastropods species are considered embarrassing, the physes for example, while others are considered like having an important use in cleaning the aquarium from the undesirable algae. In this last category we include aquarium snails, ampullaria species, Malay snails and others. In good conditions they proliferate a lot and can be removed by hand or with a trap; if you introduce a boiled salad leaf or a spinach one in the aquarium during night, the next morning the leaf will be covered by the aquarium snails and you`ll be able to remove them from the aquarium. The sudden death of a gastropods population is a sign that the aquarium equilibrium has been broken.

Ampullaria sp. are a category of aquarium snails that can grow very big, reaching the size of the terrestrial snails. They are very good cleaners because they eat the excess of food rests, but if that food isn`t enough they`ll start eating the aquarium plants. They build a nest with eggs outside the aquarium water, usually on the interior face of the aquarium, and the baby snails will fall into water after they hatch. They have an auxiliary respiration system, which they use to breathe atmospheric air when the quality of the aquarium water is not good enough. When they feel the danger, they hide in their shell and close it with a lid. It`s not hard to control the population of ampullaria aquarium snails because they have big size.

Helisoma nigricans is a specie of aquarium snails native from Brazil. They have almost a perfect circular shape and their diameter hardly reaches 1.8 cm. They are red-brown colored and they are very sensitive to temperature. If the temperature decreases below 20° C they die. A similar specie is Planorbis corneus. It lives in Europe and it`s completely harmless, though it won`t survive with a pH higher than 7.

Melanoides tuberculata is the most common aquarium snail. It can be found from Egypt to India and needs a temperature of at least 20° C. It can`t survive without minerals because it needs them in order to build its shell. It feeds with algae and food rests from aquarium fish; that`s why it is considered a great aquarium cleaner. It is a nocturne aquarium snail, during day time it hides in the ground of the aquarium. We`ll never be able to know how many aquarium snails like this we have, only if we turn off the light and return it on after 2-3 hours. In short time they propagate a lot and they give the impression of a moving ground because their movement. This is a great advantage for aquarium plants because the snails aerate the roots of the plants. Their only disadvantage is that they get into everything (even into the filter). Sometimes you can see lots of Melanoides tuberculata snails at the surface of the aquarium water; that`s a sign of water pollution