Ramshorn Snails

Rams-horn snails are a wonderful addition to any freshwater aquarium. Their shell is a beautiful natural, ancient shape and they come in a variety of colors and sizes. I have seen snails with shells of blue, red, brown, golden, yellow, pink, as well as mixed colors. Some ramshorn snails also have a spotted or lepoard prints on their shells. They eat algae and left over fish food that can make the water dangerous for fish. Snails are great at revealing water quality too. If you see your snails remaining at the surface at the water line and actually trying to climb out of the water then you know the water is not safe for your fish and it is time for a change. 

There is a lot of negativity towards aquatic snails in the aquarium because they can over populate easily. Overpopulation usually occurs when there is an over abundance of food, and or there are no natural predators of the snails in the tank. The fact is that most fish will eat the baby snails and the snail eggs if you let them. Even the grown snails will eat their own babies! If over population of snails is ever a problem there is no need for poisons to eradicate them. All one needs to do is put a clown loach in the tank with the snails, which is a type of fish sold at almost any pet store, and it will eat all the snails that are smaller than itself. Clown loaches are passionate when it comes to snails.

Another myth about snails is that they eat all your aquarium plants. This is simply not true. Some smaller snails do eat aquarium plants but not to the point that the plant is destroyed. Rams-horn snails do not eat live plants but dead plants or plant decay. This is very beneficial for keeping your water quality in your fish tank at its optimum levels.

Ramshorn snails have been known to carry a parasite through its life process and eventually end up usually infecting and killing fish. This happens in the wild because the parasite is given the chance to complete it's life process which takes about 30 days. Most aquarium snails you buy have come from aquariums and have been isolated over 30 days so the parasite has not completed its life cycle there fore eradicated. You should always be careful of disposing of aquarium water. Never throw it in storm drains or rivers or lakes. That can lead to introducing foreign plant and wildlife into the natural Eco-system which can cause a lot of problems, even lead to the extinction of native species. As always, be clean about things and wash your hands before you work with your fish, or snail tank, and after.

All in all aquarium snails, especially Rams-horn snails for their beauty, are fun safe pets that enhance the aquarium experience. They add a necessary element to your personally created Eco-system.

Ramshorn snails breath through lungs and have to go up to the surface for air. They also can carry a bubble of air inside their shell which they can use like a ballast to pop up to the surface of the water or sink down to the bottom of the tank when needed. Ramshorn snails can live about two years or longer with luck. Most types of these snails grow to be about the size of a quarter or larger. Ramshorn snails can live in slightly brackish water which make them good tank mates with guppies. Fish that are on the aggressive side usually harass snails endlessly. Sometimes they are even harassed to death by starvation because they won't come out of their shell to eat.

Even though these snails are fun pets some find it beneficial to keep Ramshorn's and breed them to supplement the diet of their other aquatic pets. As already mentioned before, clown loaches eat snails, but many other fish like them. Other known snail eating fish are catfish, puffer fish, goldfish, betta fish, and barbs.

The first snail of this clutch of eggs, in the picture to the right, is ready and will leave the others to make its first trip the the surface for air. The ramshorn snails eggs are laid sometimes as duds as you can see in the picture to the right. The egg cluster will simply look empty or jumbled up. Unfortunately, sometimes things just are not meant to be.

Ramshorn snails are hermaphrodites, which means they carry both male and female sex cells in which to create offspring. They do however, need another snail to exchange these cells with to mate efficiently and successfully.

Since ramshorn snails carry both sex cells and organs they decide when they mate who is depositing sperm and who is receiving it. They change back and forth between female and male when mating. They are also capable of auto-fertilization because they do have both sex cells withing their bodies. These baby snails will be exact replicas of the parent, or clones of the parent snail. If these snails breed with each other the gene pool will become exhausted and genetic defects will start to arise, with offspring that do not thrive or sometimes even make it at all. Usually, in the wild if this auto-fertilization were to happen, other snails with new genes would most likely come in contact with the clone snails and the gene pool of that snail would be saved.  There is little or no chance of this happening in an aquarium unless you have more than one snail.

When you purchase a ramshorn snail from a pet store though, or get one from a private party, even if you get only one snail and take it home to a tank with no snails in it, the snail may lay eggs without a mate. This is because of auto-fertilization and the probability that the snail has been in contact with many other snails already is very high. Ramshorn snails are quite small, hence they are hard to handle when they are to young to mate, and larger snails are usually sold, which are of mating age. That means, unless it is too young to mate, then it probably has mated and can lay fertile eggs. When there has been an overabundance of food in the tank the ramshorn snails reproduction rate will go up. Ramshorn snails will overpopulate the tank at this point because the more food they have, the more offspring they can and will produce.

Ramshorn snails lay their eggs almost anywhere and everywhere. On the sides of the fish tank, on the filter, on plants, and even on the backs of their fellow snails shells. The eggs are covered in a tough jelly like substance and are laid below the water line. They will hatch anywhere between 12-40 days depending on water temperature and water conditions.

The natural lifespan of a ramshorn snail is anywhere from 1 to 2 years depending on living conditions. How do you know if your ramshorn snail is dead? Sometimes it can be hard to tell is your snails are just resting, sick, or have passed away. You can check to see if they are still with you by smelling them. If there is a foul odor coming out of their shell hen you will know they are deceased. You should do this regularly because any dead animal in a tank will start to make the tank toxic.

Ramshorn Snails appreciate a temperature range of 75-80 degrees. These snails will eat a wide array of vegetables and any decaying plant material, fish food, algae wafers, other snails and fish or snail eggs. Favorites are spinach, romaine lettuce, and algae wafers. Their water should be changed as you would a normal fish tank except when something goes wrong and they start climbing out of the water, then you know its time for a change. Tap water should be treated with aquarium water products to remove toxins and metals. I like the people and pet safe variety like AmQuel+ and NovAqua plus. You will have to keep an eye out for dead snails too, because as they decay they release toxins into the water which can make conditions in the tank unhealthy.

Calcium is important for snails to maintain a healthy strong shell. The water can be supplemented with calcium in several ways. Some people use cuttle bone in the gravel of the tank. Cuttle bone is sold in most stores for birds to get calcium by scratching their beaks on it. You can just bury the cuttle bone half way in the gravel and soft side up, and the snails will absorb the calcium through their foot. Or you can crumble it and distribute it through the gravel so it is not as noticeable. Another way to supplement calcium is with products found at your local pet store like, "Kent Marine Liquid Calcium". Another inventive way to supplement calcium in your fish tank is to bake eggs shells, without the inner peel, at about 350 degrees until they are brittle and then they can be broken up and sprinkled in the snail tank.

Sometimes you can get small, unseen varieties of ramshorn snails mixed in with aquarium plants you buy at your local pet store, but snails are usually not sold by themselves. You can buy ramshorn snails online through auction sites like Ebay, and AquaBid.com.

Don't Accidental Release Exotic Species Into Your Surrounding Ecosystem:

Great care should always be taken when changing aquarium water so that none of the aquariums inhabitan'ts are released into your local environment. Make sure and inspect your aquarium water changing bucket to see there are no hitchhikers in the dirty aquarium water you just siphoned while cleaning your fish tank. Never pour aquarium water down storm drains or into rivers, lakes or streams.

Most of the little creatures and plants we keep in fish tanks are not indigenous to, or they do not naturally come from, the area in which we live. Many foreign species of aquatic plants and animals have shown up all over the world in places they shouldn't be, where they have no natural enemies. This means their populations can explode and they can kill native animals, to the point of extinction, and wreak havoc on the natural eco-system. This is only one way a non-native species can damage an ecosystem. It is a big responsibility to keep an aquarium thriving, but it is also very important to be a responsible pet owner.

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