Hi everyone!

Today I spotted a baby snail near the surface of the tank. It SHOCKED me! I had cleaned the tank yesterday and did not see the babies so I think I killed most of them I'm terribly upset at this. Right now I spot two tiny shells...there may be more hiding in the plant or near the gravel and I just can't spot them. The snails are in a 10g all for themselves...I just have some general questions that I hope someone can help me with.

I know it may sound silly but what do I feed the young ones? can they eat stuff that their parents eat? (I feed my bigger snails a diet of peas, algae waffles, corry food, goldfish food, lettuce, and dandelion leaves).

Is a 10g too small for them all? As I said, I only realy spot 2 babies. So there's the 2 of them plus the 2 bigger snailies that have lived in the 10 for months now.

Lastly, the babies are very often at the surface of the water (floating upside down - trap door faced up) is this normal? I've never seen the bigger snailies doing this.

Thanks for any help! I'm sooo very new at snails and I wasn't expecting babies for a while.

Here are some pics of the 2 babies:

Baby 1:





Baby 2:



And the parent enjoying a piece of dandelion

First off CONGRATS!! They are just too cute.

As far as the feeding go's I would think that you could feed them some of the same thing's you feed your adult snail's. Maybe just start out with some thing's that they can latch on to. I'm not too sure about baby snail's myself..So this is just a guess. Let's see what other's might say.

The 10Gal to me seem's plenty big enough for them right now, I guess I would think about moving them when the babies get bigger. But for now I think it's enough room for everyone to have space.

I don't know about the floating buisness the babie's are doing?? I'll leave that to a more knowlegable snaily expert.

Good Luck with the babies, They are soooo CUTE, What a plesent surprise.

Hehe thanks froggydella. Actually i have seen the adults floating but their trap doors have always been facing downwards not towards the water surface so I find it odds that the babies are doing that.

Yippie for babies!

I think I read on a website that one snails needs 2.5 gallons - not sure about this. If they need more room I can move some to live with the goldies.

Well let me be the first to hand out the lettuce cigars!

The pics of the babies are adorable! Congrats!

Thanks for sharing the photos!

Hmmm That does seem a tad odd huh?..Hopefully someone else can help you out more with that. I am thinking it's harmless though.

Yippeeeeeee, Your Goldie's will love some company. I get a kick out of watching my fish and snail's interact. They are too funny!

Congrats on the babies! Theyre adorable. What a great surprise.

They do really well with goldies so you sure can move some in with them if you have to!

Nice snails!

However, if I'm not mistaken, I don't think the "babies" are the same species as the "parents." The little ones look to me like Physa acuta (I'm hoping I spelled that right!), the little black "pest" snails that come on plants, and the adults are P. bridgesii. Have you added anything new (especially plants) lately?

Here are some of Stijn's pictures of Physids from applesnail.net:

http://www.applesnail.net/content/photogra...a_acuta_top.jpg
http://www.applesnail.net/content/photogra...cuta_foot_2.jpg
http://www.applesnail.net/content/photogra..._acuta_foot.jpg

The big gold ones are definitely Brigs though.

Brigs (P. Bridgesii, sorry) lay their eggs in pink masses above the waterline. They are very hard to miss so unless you saw some of those I think it more likely that you have Physids.

I'm not sure about the floating, but my Physids like to walk on the underside of the surface, if that makes any sense.

As for feeding, just let them eat whatever you feed the Brigs, they'll do fine on that diet.

And if they are in fact Physids, 10 gallons for two of them and two Brigs is a lot of space, so don't worry about overcrowding! I was just researching their maximum size but the only thing I could find was a mention of one being 12 mm. They won't be large at any rate.

They sure are cool snails though!

that first baby looks like apond snail to me. a cutie, but many are anti ponds...

but Im not an expert.. I feed my babies basicly the same things you do, and their doing well!

Hi everyone, thanks for the informative replies and lovely comments

Airwen I do believe you're right! I was wondering why the babies had longer shells than the adults but then I thought it was just a baby thing and as they grew up it changed or something. And YES! That's exactly what they look like they're doing - walking under the surface of the water (my lame description was floating with their trap door facing towards the surface lol but I didn't know how else to describe it). So they are pest sails after all. What a bummer But it certainly makes me feel better knowing that I didn't kill lots of baby brigs - I knew I wouldn't have overlooked something like brig eggs because I stare at the snail tank daily. I just wonder where the pest snails came from...they have the red plant for a month now and nothing new was added - weird that they popped up after a month.

I'm not very clear from those photos because the snails look very black. My babies are very tan and their shell is golden like the brigs. The only thing I can tell is that their shells are a bit longer in length than the brigs. I need to look into the pest snails more. Thanks for bringing them up

Well, basing comparisons on color only isn't usually very accurate, so just look at shell shape.

One of the amazing things about snails (to me at least..) is that their babies look exactly like their parents, only a lot smaller. Same shell shape and everything.

Maybe they've just not been on that part of the tank while you were looking at it, or something. It's possible.

They are pretty cool snails though. I keep the ones I pull off plants in a Tupperware container on the hood of my big tank. They're pretty fun to watch, they love walking upside down on the water surface. I've seen baby Brigs do it to, but not as much as the Physids.

Oh and on goldfish- as they won't grow very large at all, they are at risk of being goldie food, FYI.

That's very possible Airwen. Thanks for helping me out. I'm going to let them live with my brigs and see how it works out. I was just googling photos of pest snails and other types of snails in general and I saw "rainbow snails" ..there were pink and purple shells. Are those dyed or are they naturally just like that?

There are a lot of color variations with Brigs. They are Brigs, just like your big ones, but in the aquarium trade they have been cultivated to produce fantastic pink, blue, purple, ivory, green, and other colors.

"Rainbow snails" I think is the name of a small business that sells these guys. A lot of colors - red-white, dark striped purple, etc.- have been renamed by such sellers to make them more appealing - for example, you can search for "peppermint", "grape", "magenta", etc. Thus a collection of these renamed snails could be called "rainbow snails" instead of Brigs or apple snails.

Cool!

yes, check out my thread below, i posted some of my babies.. not the best picts of color, but you can kinda get the idea.. I have golds, blacks, jades, grapes and peppermints

Yup, you've got 2 little Physa Acuta alright! Well spotted Airwen.

I found out about these little guys when I brought home my new Apple Snail last week. There was one (Physa Acuta) attatched to its back (like a baby monkey with it's mummy!!). I assumed it was its baby until I looked at its shell and realised he was just a cheeky little hitchhiker!

I haven't seen him since he went into the tank! I really hope one of my goldies didn't suck him up for dinner. He was sooooo tiny.

Good luck with your little ones. X