Help ID these snails

jaxmom293

jaxmom293

AC Members
May 4, 2009
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Holbrook, NY
Hello,
I've got a few new plants about 3 weeks ago and today I've found these stow-aways adhered to the bottom of my driftwood. I don't keep snails in this tank and I only keep brigg snails, which are in a separate tank. Can anyone tell me what kind of snails these are? Looking in the tank (really looking) I see more and I expect that there would be a lot more that I don't see. I don't know anything about other snails so ..... how do I get rid of them? my fish obviously don't eat them. If I decided to keep them, would they harm the plants they rode in with?

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they are common ramshorns, pretty ones to boot. They are harmless. They should not eat healthy plants. They should only get really numberous with an ample food source (algae, uneaten fish food, unhealthy plants). You can crush them and your fish will eat them.
 
:iagree:

Also make great assassin food.:p:
 
crush them!.....I can't do that. If only you see what I go through when I have to freeze the clutches from the briggs. I know, what a whimp I am.
 
jaxmom293 said:
crush them!.....I can't do that. If only you see what I go through when I have to freeze the clutches from the briggs. I know, what a whimp I am.
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I'm the same way! Doesn't help that snails are so cute with their little mouths on the glass.
 
You don't even have to crush them for some fish! You could just let them do their thing if you have any snail eating fish, but I don't see why you couldn't just leave them alone, they'd be fine.
 
They were in a tank with guppies, platys & swordtails - none of the fish want anything to do with the snails that I can see, although they did torture my briggs, which is why I separated them. I have another tank with a huge angelfish but he doesn't bother with the 3 baby briggs I put in with him so I doubt he'd eat them.

There are 4 more of the pink ones that I saw attached to a plant. I haven't really dismantled the tank (yet) to see how many I really have. I don't want to be overrun with these little creatures, even though they are cute. Where do they lay their eggs? & what do they look like? Are these the kind of snails that don't need a partner to reproduce?
Thanks for your help!!! :-)
 
Probably Pond snails or Bladder snails. Same type of deal, they breed fast but don't actually hurt anything. Eggs will be everywhere. I find them on the rubber tip of my heater, on leaves of anacharis, and would you believe that the way I got ramshorns was that there were eggs on the Brigg that I bought? I didn't realize what that spot on him was until I started seeing the egg spots around my tank after I had them for awhile.

I actually don't mind my pest snails...yet. I would even like to have some reds like you've got. The ones I have are leopard spotted.
 
I have a somewhat different experience. I have several tanks and at various times both ponmd snails and pink rams have over-populated. I guess you could conclude I overfeed-but I have no other problems and do need feed my pet apple snails can get to. I found both species to be too much trouble even with a lot of squishign and freezing of the driftwood to keep number down--now I am in the process of eradicating them.
 
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