Snail floating?

[Allison Reed]

One of my giant ramshead ( i think ) snails has all of a sudden been floating at the top of my aquarium. Its never done this, but suddenly it sits halfway out of its shell, eyes mouth and foot out, ....floating. It's a nuetral PH, temp 80, little or no ammonia, etc. ( i check every day, nearly )

So, uhm, what might be happening? I moved it from the 10 it was floating in to the 100, and...it hung suspended in the middle of the tank, then sank. I touched its foot and it didn't retract at all. Could it be dead?

[tetra_girl]

Don't worry, they do that sometimes. :)

Floating seems to be some form of amusement for them. You can read about it here:

http://www.magnesium.net/%7Eheather/snails/index2.html

and more specifically in her ramshorn section this behaviour is mentioned.

Mine do this too, and just like the site says the ramshorns seem to be quite clumsy at it (I thought they were in distress too when I first saw them doing this).

They're funny little things. :p

[RTR]

If the 'giant ramshorn' is a Colombian Ramshorn, they are a flat-spiraled apple snail, and are air-breathers. If they don't get at least near the surface (they have siphon tubes) they will drown.

Regular ramshorn snails are also airbreathers, so both these types must go to or very near the surface.