I bought a lovely little fish yesterday and the guy at the pet store gave me a beautiful snail for free. now i THINK it's an apple snail but im not sure. Here's a pic. Any thoughts guys?



Oh my this guy was so hard to find in my tank. Seems he stuck himself under one of my silk plants so the leaves completely covered him. this is the best shot i could get............

(eek! it wont let me edit my post)

anyways, i was also wondering what i have to do for the lil guy? do i have to feed him anything specific? i dont know anything about him!!

I don't know about snail types or species... but I do know that I used to feed my snail a little bit once in awhile, like twice a week. I would hold a piece of soaked fish flake food or skinned pea up to its front until the little mouth-piece came out and ate some. After a while, the snail learned to like the prescence of my fingers!

Hey FF - what you have there is a Brigs Apple Snail (pomacea bridgesii) I love them and have kept them myself.
They do need to be fed - contrary to the popular belief that they eat algae from the tank. They like dark greens, zucchini, spinach, cucumber and romaine lettuce amoung other things. I always cooked the food for mine so that it was good and soft as these snails favour rotting veg, rather than the Cana's who love to strip a planted tank overnight! The other thing to bear in mind is that they need quite hard water to maintain their shells - you can also add liquid calcium to help with this. Do you happen to know your GH?

I keep my apple snail in my GF tank and I have a floating breeding box in their. Every couple of days I pop him in there and feed him greens & algae pellets. When he has finished he is able to get out himself.

I used to feed my apple snails turtle pellets due to the calcium in them. It's suppose to help with hardening their shells. Does anyone know if it really does help?

Last time i tested my water, my GH was at the highest end of the chart. I am on town water which does happen to be really hard.

Hmmmm do you think if i put some algae wafers in the tank it would be enough for him?

I'm sure it would be fine for some of the time, but as with all animals you do need to provide some variety. It's very easy to just put a slice of cucumber or zucchini in the microwave for 30/40 secs and then clip it to the tank side with a lettuce clip. Selena's idea of the floating breeding box is good too, as he wouldn't risk having his food stolen by the Gfish. I used to put my snails food on a clip at night once the lights were off and the GF weren't thrashing round the tank - the snails tend to be nocturnal.
Oh and one last thing - they do respond to temperature so if your tank drops to the low 70's or below they will move very little. My tank was usually kept at around 75/76.
Your GH is good. If you start to notice that the new shell growth is weak and fragile you can always buy some liquid calcium.

I have a big apple snail in a seperate tank (I removed him from my goldie tank because he was being picked on). I feed him about every 3 days, usually with cucumber or lettuce on a veggie clip. I also toss in any extra food from the goldies, like gf pellets, shrimp pellets and peas. He even eats gel food! Snails are good fun





That's an interesting idea! I've never heard of it before.

Turtle pellets? I've never tried that either. But I did read that apples like rabbit food pellets, and my neighbor just happens to have a rabbit. I dropped a pellet in, and they were all over it in a matter of seconds. They love them!! Even the dwarf frogs attack the pellets.