love the snail...should I keep it?

[daveedka]

I'm in Ontario, have no idea where the LFS got the snails, but they had a lot of them. But they all had the deterioration (which I hope goes away soon?!) so I don't know if their source was any good? Good luck in your search Kissofthegorami, I'd send you one but I'm thinking cross-border snail shipping wouldn't be a good idea.

Shell deterioration is usually a sign of low calcium, I actually use my snails as one of the monitors of my calcium levels in my tanks. In most cases they will recover if it isn't too bad to begin with and if you keep a good supply of calcium available.
If you have medium to soft water, you may need to supplement calcium.
Crushed coral in the filter will help, but also raises Kh and subsequently Ph. Calcium cloride will help without changing Kh/Ph and is a more direct approach by far. A piece of Cuttlebone (Bird department at the LPS) tied to a rock will allow your snail to graze calcium directly. And lastly high calcium foods such as shrimp and crayfish pellets will help a bunch. I do pretty much all of these things to keep a steady supply of Ca in my snails tanks. IME it really takes about 80-120 ppm of calcium to keep a snail shell happy.
Dave

 

[wataugachicken]

i tossed a few small pieces of cuttlebone into my snail tank, i never see them grazing on it (definitely not as tasty as fresh plants!) but i think enough of it dissolves in the water for them to benefit from. they've grown maybe a half to 3/4 inch of shell since i got them a couple months ago and the shell is flawless.

 

[Kasakato]

I'm in Ontario, have no idea where the LFS got the snails, but they had a lot of them. But they all had the deterioration (which I hope goes away soon?!) so I don't know if their source was any good? Good luck in your search Kissofthegorami, I'd send you one but I'm thinking cross-border snail shipping wouldn't be a good idea.

Just to add to the point, yes in Ontario we have low calcium levels. My snails are all like that.