ReptoCal

scampyfan

scampyfan

AC Members
Feb 15, 2007
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seattle
i posted this in Gen Freshwater yesterday with little response, but i just realized that a posting in inverts might get me more info:

ok, i didn't find this anywhere in the forums, but i could have searched too specifically.
I have a 10G, heavily planted, right now full of snails (one golden mystery and manymany pond snails) ghost shrimp, and one fantastic beta. I want the snails to keep going because i'm planning on giving my beta a 20 gal (i love watching him swim around!) and turning the 10gal into a brackish-ish with a puffer or 3, so the snails will be good to have around. My water calcium is really low, and my GMsnail is having shell issues. My LFS told me to drop a tums in the tank to add calcium, but all i had was strawberry tums and i really didn't like seeing the powdery pink stuff floating around, so i don't want to do that again. My Boy went out on a hunt for better calcium and brought back ReptoCal powdered calcium supplement for reptiles. Anyone use this in their tanks? Any thoughts? Other suggestions?
My snails thank ya in advance!
 
I use Kent's Liquid Calcium (intended for marine tanks). It's a snail-only tank, so I don't know how well fish would handle it. Another good choice is using calcium carbonate gravel or sand (either as the substrate, or in a bag in the filter). This I know won't bother fish, so long as they are hardy in hard, high ph waters (and most common fish are).

Feeding a variety of calcium rich foods helps. There's a list on the feeding subforum at applesnail.net (where you can find tons more info than any one person could tell you).

The mystery snail shouldn't be kept in brackish. They are freshwater, and the salt will hurt them if not outright kill them.
 
Feed them collard greens. They won't like them at first because they're a little bitter, but they should start eating them, especially if you give them or little or nothing in the way of other foods. Collard greens have a lot of calcium.
 
Large Nerites for brackish water cleaning crew, though you can toss pond snails in at feeding time - they won't "live" in it.

I'd get a Ca test kit (I think they're available to the hobby) and add oyster shell, coral rubble or a marine Ca supplement as suggested above.

Keeps ome brackish tolerant plants in there so the puffers have lots of visual barriers - this will help keep their natural aggression toward each other in check.
 
thanks for the replies!
i wasn't too clear on my plan. the golden mystery is my BABY and will not go into the brackish, and i'm transferring almost all the plants except java fern and moss into another tank before salting anything. I want to move the pond snails into a wee 2.5 G breeding tank, but i'd like to start with alot, so thats why i'm not wanting to kill off what i have.
I'm going to try the collards (i have a few farmers markets nearby, and they always have kale and collards) and see how that goes.

i'd still love to hear anything anyone has to say about ReptoCal in a tank though!
 
only puffers that can live in a 10g are FRESHWATER dwarf puffers, 1-3 of them.

all other puffers (as far as i know) need larger tanks, and btw pond snails i hear can chip their beaks (or was that mysterys ?) and that its best to feed them golden ramshorns...
 
I'm thinking of 3 DPs and a Java Fern mat in there - deep jungle look. I hadn't heard that about pond snails...i'm off to check it out. I also read that if the snail shells aren't hard enough, their beaks will overgrow and need to be clipped in order for them to be able to eat. if that turns out to be really common, i might scrap the whole idea. That sounds like a disaster/horrible memory waiting to happen.
 
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