what type of snails?

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bettagurl

Colby's Pincher (24X)
Aug 5, 2006
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no problem:)
they are easy to come by,pick a plant at your LFS that you can see a bunch of them on.thats how i ended up with alot of snails.
 

plah831

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Apr 29, 2006
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ramshorns are another good feeder snail. Both they and pond snails lack an operculum, or the trap door that snails can close on predators. Both are very common hitchhikers in live plants. I got a sizable breeding colony of common ramshorns from my LFS for free. I was actually doing them a favor by helping clean them out of their display tanks :)

Both ramshorns and ponds are great for breeding as feeders because they're hermaphrodites (unlike snails of the mystery family) so can mate with anyone else of the same species, so in essence can mate twice as much as mystery snails that must find someone of the right gender.
 

fishcatch22

The Picotoper
Jun 13, 2006
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Morris, Illinois
plah831 said:
ramshorns are another good feeder snail. Both they and pond snails lack an operculum, or the trap door that snails can close on predators. Both are very common hitchhikers in live plants. I got a sizable breeding colony of common ramshorns from my LFS for free. I was actually doing them a favor by helping clean them out of their display tanks :)

Both ramshorns and ponds are great for breeding as feeders because they're hermaphrodites (unlike snails of the mystery family) so can mate with anyone else of the same species, so in essence can mate twice as much as mystery snails that must find someone of the right gender.
plah.... ramshorns are members of the apple snail family and are not hermadiphoric. I think you are reffering to malaysian trumpet snails. just check out www.applesnail.net.
 

plah831

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Apr 29, 2006
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I breed them and they are indeed hermaphrodites http://www.e-aquarium.com.au/ramshorn_snail.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramshorn_snail

Ramshorns (including common, red, jewel) belong to the family Planorbidae. Mystery/brig/canas/apple are Ampullariidae.

The only "ramshorn" snail that is an Ampullariid is Marisa cornuarietis or the Columbian ramshorn or Giant ramshorn. But the ramshorn name, common name, for this species refers only to the shape of the shell, and not its taxonomy.

Malaysian trumpet snails are also hermaphrodites, but they don't lay eggs. They produce crawl-away baby snails, so are "livebearers".
 
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loaches r cool

Snail Terminator
Feb 15, 2006
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tristan.homelinux.net
I have a snail tank for the puffers with comon pond snails but they didnt seem to reproduce nearly as fast enough as I'd like. I added a single ramshorn - I havent actually ID'd em but they are reddish brown with spots. Within a couple weeks of putting a lone snail in I saw dozens of little baby snails. After about a month these new ramshorn snails took over the tank. They get big real quick, much quicker than the pond snails did. Now I really have to look hard to find a single pond snail and sometimes I cant even find any. I havent done anything special for the snails, the tank is a 20G tank that has lots of plants and guppies and thats it (no filter, heater, air pump... no nothing other than light over it). I dont even change the water other than topping it off every other month or so. its my low tech / no maintenence feeder tank. I am not a snail expert and was going to research into how to better keep them until the ramshorn came along and no longer have a problem keeping a large stock of them.
 
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fishcatch22

The Picotoper
Jun 13, 2006
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plah831 said:
I breed them and they are indeed hermaphrodites http://www.e-aquarium.com.au/ramshorn_snail.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramshorn_snail

Ramshorns (including common, red, jewel) belong to the family Planorbidae. Mystery/brig/canas/apple are Ampullariidae.

The only "ramshorn" snail that is an Ampullariid is Marisa cornuarietis or the Columbian ramshorn or Giant ramshorn. But the ramshorn name, common name, for this species refers only to the shape of the shell, and not its taxonomy.

Malaysian trumpet snails are also hermaphrodites, but they don't lay eggs. They produce crawl-away baby snails, so are "livebearers".
well, that's all very confusing.... I was referring to the brig ramshorn..... why must they have such confusion with common names? how do i make sure I mean the one I mean? and I knew that about brig RHs and MTS.... please cdon't go overboard expalining things like that. it's kind of rude, and makes me feel dumb.
 

plah831

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Apr 29, 2006
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I know, honey. That's why common names are confusing. Scientific names eliminate all confusion. That's all I can tell ya :) Sorry for making you feel dumb, that wasn't my intention. I was just trying to put info out there for anyone who might read this, not to make you feel bad.
 
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