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Thinning shells on red ramshorn snails

5K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  Cinnamonamon 
#1 ·
Many of the adult red ramshorn snails in my tank have thinning shells, with some shells so thin, there are linear holes.

My water supply is very hard and very alkaline, so I know there is much calcium already in the water. I don't know if there is something to promote the calcium to be more bio-available to the snails to support shell growth.

What can I do to try to improve shell growth?
 
#3 ·
I have had water as well but that doesn't automatically mean its calcium rich.

When I was doing aquaponics I'd learned that when you fix a magnesium deficiency (with epsom salt) it can cause a calcium deficiency, so I had to be careful not to use too much. Not sure if you dose magnesium in your tanks for any plants?

Some people add (cleaned) egg shells so if you can work eggs into your diet (or just not toss the shells) have omelets, keish, sunny side up etc etc and don't.toss.the.shells. Youtube videos talk about preping egg shells for aquariums.

I've not used it but people recommend snello or search recipes for snail jello.
 
#6 ·
Thanks for the info.

The last two weeks, I've been using aquarium salt according to recommended dosage. Not for any particular reason, like a preventive tonic. I happened to have among my supplies for years and did not want to throw it away, so I started dosing it (Aquarium Pharmeticals).

Never realized it would cause a calcium defficiency.

I hear you on the eggshells. My 12yo daughter like to eat 5-6 poached eggs over toasted sourdough at a time. We run through a lot of eggs. I'll rinse the shells and set them aside until I can check out youtube videos on how to make the shells bio-available in the water column.

Thanks again.

Bump:
That's what it is. Unfortunately co2 will eventually eat away some of the shells of snails, it happens with all of my snails in my high tech tanks. It's why I don't add nerites to them anymore, while it seems to take a while and the snails otherwise still appear to grow and be healthy, it doesn't look very attractive at the least. I do keep bladder, ramshorn, and MTS in the high tech tanks, though.

But yeah, it's the co2.
Well that sucks.

I want my co2 and healthy snails as well.

Thanks for the heads up - I'll see if I can research some sort of workaround for snails in a co2 dosed tank.
Meantime, I'll back off on the co2, the main plants are growing too fast anyhow and its a real chore to keep them trimmed.
 
#5 ·
That's what it is. Unfortunately co2 will eventually eat away some of the shells of snails, it happens with all of my snails in my high tech tanks. It's why I don't add nerites to them anymore, while it seems to take a while and the snails otherwise still appear to grow and be healthy, it doesn't look very attractive at the least. I do keep bladder, ramshorn, and MTS in the high tech tanks, though.

But yeah, it's the co2.
 
#11 ·
Egg shells will be increasing your water KH, you don’t want that, and Ramshorn snails can’t use them because they are too hard to eat. I have healthy red Ramshorn snails in zero KH with CO2 injection. They need calcium rich foods like frozen shredded raw spinach to keep their shells in good shape, that’s all.
 
#14 ·
Spinach!



Raw Spinach.
Good for humans, good for snails - who would have known?

We buy fresh spinach all the time. I'll shred them lightly in a blender and give that a try (no, not a puree, I'll be careful to zap only a couple pulses of the blender).

Thanks for the tip!
 
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