Hi my name is SuzAnn and I have two apple snails blonde in color. Anyway one has
been floating for three or four days way out of it's shell and teenie weenie
bubbles are forming around the front of the snail . The bubbles are in some form
of thin slime. Is this snail dying?
< Unfortunately your snail has passed away and needs to removed quickly so its
decomposing body doesn't add to the ammonia and nitrate problem.-Chuck>
Floating Snail
I have a snail that has been floating on and off for the last couple of
days. When it is floating it is closed up inside of it's shell. Is something
wrong with it?
<Hopefully not>
What would make it float?
<It may be looking for food>
I'm not sure what kind of snail it is, but it is not cone shaped. It is round. I
have four larger gold fish in the ten gallon aquarium with the snail. I do not
feed the snail anything extra because I thought there would be enough algae, and
left over fish food. Do I need to supplement feed the snail?
<Likely not>
Any help you could give would be greatly appreciated. I've never had a snail
before.
Thanks,
Lonnette
<Please read here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwsnails.htm
and the FAQs file (in blue, at top) re these snails. Bob Fenner>
Re: snails floating
Halloo
I have a 2 gallon fishbowl with one Betta and 3 snails (brand: unknown.) These
snails have a peculiar behavior lately of floating on the top. If I pick them up
they retract, and they otherwise seem to be happily doing their job (slithering
around, cleaning the bowl.) Is this a precursor to something bad?
Thanks -- KN
<Likely nothing wrong here. Some snails are more amphibious than truly totally
aquatic... they may be looking for more food, perhaps going to the surface for
more oxygen. But the Betta is a "facultative aerial respirator" (breaths
atmosphere), so not to worry re the latter for its sake. Bob Fenner>
Shy Snail? - 03/27/2004
I recently bought a snail for my 20 gallon freshwater tank. I have a few
other fish in tank that are about a year old. I noticed today the snail was
tucked in his shell and wasn't eating, is this normal for a snail to stay in
it's shell all day long?
<Mm, possibly, but certainly isn't a good sign. Check ammonia, nitrite,
nitrate, and pH, to be on the safe side.>
I don't know much about snails, if there is a certain temp. for water...etc.
<To be honest, I don't know, especially without knowing what species you
have. Try looking here: http://www.applesnail.net/
.>
Any information you can give me would be greatly appreciated. I just hope he
hasn't passed on.
<Me, too!>
Hoover, was so much fun to watch.
<"Hoover"? What a fitting name! My most recent acquisition, an L-260 Pleco,
has been named "Suckhead" :) >
Yes, we named all the fish including the snail.
<Understandable, of course :) >
Please reply. Sandra
<Done. Hope you can find the answers you're looking for! Wishing you
well, -Sabrina>
Snail Missing Antennae 7/4/04
Hi,
<Hi, Pufferpunk here>
I took a good look through your website (great) but didn't find my question
answered. I just got a 'zebra snail' for my aquarium, and he's doing a great job
in it so far, but when I got him he had lovely, long tentacles, and I'm afraid
my Betta has bitten them to about 1/4 their proper size. My question is... do
they grow back? I'm considering moving the Betta out for a couple reasons, and
if I knew the tentacles would grow back that would encourage me to do so. (If
they won't grow back then the damage is done).
<Yes, they will grow back. I have never heard of a Betta doing this though.>
Thanks guys! Lynn
<Good luck with your snail friend. I'm a snail-lover too! I have an apple
snail the size of my fist! ~PP>
Apple snail question
Hi,
is it normal for a fairly large apple snail to spend most of her time in a
corner inside her shell? She comes out when I drop bits of zucchini in for her
to eat but spends almost all of the rest of her time inside her shell in the
back of the tank.
I guess I just want to know if this is something I should be concerned about, or
if its perfectly normal behavior and I should just let her do her thing.
< Snails usually come out to forage for food. If you are feeding the snail well
then there is really no need for your snail to be out and about. To be sure try
not feeing the snail for awhile and see if it comes out looking for food. I
think the only problem is your snail is fat and happy ( and lazy)-Chuck>
thanks,
~Anna
Do freshwater snails hibernate or something similar?
<Well, kinda, yeah. Their metabolism will slow dramatically in extreme
cold....>
We have 2 apple, 2 rams horn and 2 cone shaped snails in our tank. Everyone was
very active and moving about the tank. Two days ago we noticed that everyone
was just hanging out in their shells and not moving. It has been two days and
the only movement has been the fish around them or the bubbles.
<The likeliest culprit here is poor water quality - what are your readings for
ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH? Has pH changed recently? If ammonia or
nitrite are above zero, even by a tiny bit, that would cause the snails to close
up shop and hide; high nitrate may do the same (nitrate should be less than
20ppm).>
My husband says they are dead and wants to get rid of them.
<Pull one out of the tank - if it smells like the devil himself has come for a
visit, the snail is dead. You will KNOW, immediately, if the snail smells
dead.>
I can't figure out what would kill them all in one evening.
<I'm not confidant they're dead yet - check 'em and see. My best guess is still
water quality.>
We did add 3 new fish, but we did not add the water they came in. Any ideas?
<Possible ammonia spike from the new additions.... How many and what kind of
fish in how large a tank? Another possibility is that you might have a fish
that is picking on/harming the snails. Keep an eye out for this, and do get
back to us with a list of your livestock, and the readings on your water tests -
I hope we can nail this down for you, so you can fix it and not have the problem
again in the future!>
Thank you...
Snail less in Seattle
<Wishing you well, -Sabrina>
Snail question
Hello,
My son and I just read your web page on snails and wondered if you
could answer a question for us. We have a 10 gallon tank with a couple Catfish
sharks and a Pleco. One day we found we had a visitor in our tank, a small
Ramshorn (we think) snail (stowaway on a plant). Well we decided to keep "Gary"
and now we have Gary's 1-100 in our small tank. I often manually remove several
when the population gets too high but over all we enjoy all of the snails. Our
question is this, often there are times when there are several snails in a big
ball (about 5+ snails) the corner of the tank. We would like to know if you know
if there is a reason they do this and or is it normal. We are just worried that
its not a normal thing and there is something we can do to help them. We have
thought of several reasons to this "snail ball" (hungry, cold, snail fighting
:) ) but we just don't know a lot about snails to know what's going on. Any
help could give us would be great.
< More than likely they are feeding on a piece of left over food or a dead fish.
If you want to thin then out you can place a wafer food pellet on the bottom and
after a while you can remove the snail ball.-Chuck>
Thank you for your time,
Monte and Logan Chaney
Snails and Plecos
Dear WetWeb Crew,
We have a 30 gallon tank with one snail (1 to 1-1/4" inches in diameter),
one Pleco (1-1/4"),
<Tiny!>
one Bala shark, two Hatchetfish, two blue Paradisefish, two Rasboras, two tiny
frogs, one brown Knifefish, and one glass
catfish. After the blue paradise fish battled each other for dominance (about
2-3 weeks), the tank has been harmonious for the past two months or so.
Question: Our snail is behaving erratically; several times, he(?) has just
"closed up shop," and floated around the tank. Then he re-adheres to the side,
and behaves normally for awhile. He spends most of his time now floating, with
his shell half-closed. He started doing this (we think) shortly after we
observed the Pleco eating algae off of his shell. (The algae was there when we
got him two months ago, and has not seemed to have caused any problem thus far.)
Concurrently, we noticed the snail appears to have suddenly grown about 1/8" of
new shell right above his body, not touched by any algae.
<What you describe so well is likely simply "natural" behavior... a way that
these snails "get around" quickly... compared with going at a "snail's pace" via
their "feet"... and no problem with the small Pleco cleaning off its shell. Bob
Fenner>
