I went to a LFS one time and they told me that they weren't allowed to sell apple snails. I was disappointed before I love land snail so I really wanted an aquatic one. Well it been about 6 months and when I went in petsmart today to buy 20 ghost shrimp, they were having a sale. All the tanks were stocked with new fish(I was drooling at the goldies they had). Right next to the shrimp tank were three tanks with mystery snails!! On the left were ivory, in the middle were gold and on the right were blues and browns. My mother wanted me to get a gold one but I spotted a pretty nice size(1.5-2 inch) ivory zooming up and down the walls. I didn't see any active snails in the other tanks. I had to get him(errr...I think it is really a female).

After 10 seconds in his new home he started cleaning all the algae off the bottom and walls of the breeder box that I keep my floating plants in. WOW! This guy is a fast cleaner. I hope he stays this way and wasn't just starved at the store. lol.

Tomorrow I have to go back and buy a blue and brown. Its so rare to have snails around here. First time I've seen them for sale.

He is cream, not gold so I guess thats ivory. He looked white next to the gold tank. They were bright yellow. The light was low for my shrimp. I will get better pictures tomorrow that show his true color. Pictures are a little yellow due to the bulb in my clip on spot light.

He is a Pomacea bridgesii, right? I want to make sure before releasing him into my planted tank. I heard Brigs don't eat growing, healthy plants.






Ghost shrimp climbing "The Mountain"

This little guy has been hanging around in the riccia. Physa acuta I believe.

He/she is VERY cute! Weird that they are so hard to get over there. They are sold everywhere here!! It looks like the kind I have and it might eat plants but Im not sure. Usually they only eat algae and poo if theyre starving though. I would try to feed it a leaf of lettuce or algae/veggie wafer.

Congrats!

Are you sure? A lot of sites say they really like algae. I will of course be giving it other stuff. I have tons of mini algae waffers(plus a small bag of normal size) left over from breeding. I only fed them every once in awhile while breeding bettas.

Article Found Here
Pomacea bridgesi: Shells of the P. bridgesi snail may be found in a number of patterns and colors, including black, gold, and ivory. The gold variety is often sold as the "Golden Mystery Snail." The shell of P. bridgesi has square "shoulders," when viewing it from the side. P. bridgesi generally reaches a size of 2 inches in an aquarium setting. Since this snail mainly eats algae, P. bridgesi is a good choice for a planted aquarium. In general, it will only eat plants if other food is not available. This snail will eat algae, vegetables, flake food, frozen foods, and live foods.

To be honest, Im not SURE. Thats just what Ive read many times on the board here. Hopefully someone else can give you some insight.

Ok, thank you.

I let him out of the box. He is roaming the tank.

Yep, that's a brig. As a juvenile he will eat up a lot of algae, but he still needs some other food. Snails enjoy a very large variety of foods including spinach, dandelion greens, turnip greens, romaine lettuce, green beans, carrots, shrimp pellets, and so on. As an adult he won't be very interested in algae; if he's not stunted he should be fully mature by the time the reach about the size of a quarter or slightly larger. I highly recommend checking out applesnail.net for some great snail cookie recipes. There's also a great thread with pictures on how to sex them

Also...LOVELY snail! Great shell, better than I'm used to seeing from a pet store that's for sure. I imagine the period when they couldn't sell snails was just waiting for their USDA permit to clear, that can take up to three months

No, I think they were talking about Canas. The USDA seems to hate them more. I bet when I said apple snail the lady didn't know what type I was talking about. Also, it was a family story so I'm sure they didn't have the best resources. I got this guy from petsmart.

He is bigger than a quarter. More like a .50 or just over a quarter size. lol, I didn't want a tiny one for my first one. Babies seem to be harder to care for. He sucks up algae like spaghetti. I believe the algae I have is thread algae but it could be hair algae. All the areas that he could reach are algae free. I put an algae waffer in the tank and from what I observed I will give him 2 waffers a week and some type of vegi. It will most likely change as he grows and how hungry he is.

OMG! His mouth is like a cat tongue. It was cool.

I used applesnail.net to sex. I'm pretty sure it is a female. The shell is clear enough to see through and I didn't see anything that pointed to a male.

Yahoo! I'm going to get about 5 more tomorrow. 3 for the 46 gallon. One for the 2.5 gallon and one for the 10 gallon, plus a large bag or food. I'll look into some calcium stuff too. Any recommendations?

The easiest calcium source seems to be vacation feeders, the food doesn't do them much good but it's set in a block of calcium that the snailies love. A lot of people also put a handful of crushed coral or pieces of cuttlebone in the filter for more calcium. Personally, I'm one of the people that drops the cuttlebone right in the tank, the snails munch on it and anything left after a week gets replaced. There are also many types of liquid calcium available online and in many pet stores (namely, any stores better than the one in my little town ).

Yeah, the USDA doesn't give permits for the canas at all, too bad, they're great pets and only turn into pests when people are irresponsible with them.

I use Kent's Liquid Calcium. Works great and you only need to use a little each day so a bottle lasts a long time.

Got 6 new snails!! 2 golfball size ivories,2 quater size wild types, and 2 nickel to quarter size blues. I got all of them for just under a two dollars each.

Wow, the ivory snails are BIG! I thought Miruku was big but these new guys are huge. All are in the 46 gallon with my goldfish. The goldfish don't care about the snails. They just slightly scare the snails when their tail fins brush their faces.

Also, Miruku seems to have damaged or grown her shell. It is slightly clear in the front. Is this just new growth? One of the new blues is like that too.

Yep, that's just new growth, it'll pigment later on