#snail keeping

[spideraquarium]

The OG Granny Malaysian Trumpet Snail of all my tanks has finally passed, after leaving a legacy of uncountable daughters, granddaughters, and all the following designations since that species breeds every few months at least. Here are some wonderful images of Granny Trumpet Snail in candid portrait. alongside the bladder snails she tolerated.

[i-m-snek]

Offended that I took their day old green bean away Content with replacement cucumber

[onenicebugperday]

Hello! I have a garden snail that had lots of babies and was hoping for some advice please! :) I want to make their enclosure as comfy as possible for them but I don't know how. Do they prefer dark environments? Hidey holes? What kind of substrate is best? Etc. Thank you!

(I'm in Southern California)

Congrats on your snabies! Firstly I would not take any substrate or decor for the tank from outside unless you want a lot of hitchhiker creatures in your snail tank. If you do, you'll want to bake it first.

A standard 10 (or larger) gallon aquarium with a mesh lid works great, but you'll want to modify the lid to cover most of the mesh to keep the inside humid. I just bought a squeeze tube of silicone and attached some plastic sheeting inside the lid to cover about 75% of the mesh.

Substrate can be any sort of animal-safe soil-like substrate - so soils meant for bioactive reptile and amphibian enclosures or for isopods. Repti-soil, Creature Soil, organic potting mix, etc. I personally have my snails in with my millipedes, and use a combination of eco earth and Josh's Frogs milli mix - can't recommend milli mix enough! Josh's Frogs ABG mix or isopod substrate would also be appropriate.

No matter which soil you choose, it should be 4-5 inches deep both to hold humidity and for burrowing. 10 quarts will fill a 10 gallon aquarium to the proper depth.

As for decor, I would avoid rocks since snails WILL climb the glass and other decor and probably will fall off from time to time. Rocks can shatter their shells. I would stick to wood - any aquarium safe wood is fine. Cork bark, mopani, spider wood, etc. I'd also recommend some dry/dead reptile-type sphagnum moss to keep up humidity and for nibbling, and some kind of leaf litter - I buy bags of dry/brown live oak leaves on amazon for pretty cheap. My snails don't seem to hide in holes or crevices much - when they're not active, they mostly hang out on the lid or the top glass of the tank.

You do not need lighting or heating unless your house gets particularly cold in the winter - they may be less active if it's too cold. You can put a low watt reptile heating pad on the side of the tank to keep the temp up around 70+ if need be. They are primarily active at night, so if you want to see what they're up to, a small light that doesn't give off heat near the tank would be okay.

Most important is humidity. Get all of the substrate and moss damp as you put it into the tank with distilled water. I use a reptile mister bottle and buy gallons of distilled water at the grocery store. They last a long time so not a big investment. You'll also have to mist the whole enclosure probably daily, maybe twice daily. It should be moist and humid but not sopping wet. Don't let the substrate dry out entirely. Occasionally you may have to stick your finger into the soil to make sure it's staying damp under the surface.

And finally, snails need calcium for their shells! I occasionally dust the top of the substrate with powdered reptile calcium, or you can throw a cuttlebone in there for them to nibble on.

Here's a list of safe/not safe foods for snails.

If you ever have more questions about setup that I didn't answer here, feel free to IM me! Happy to share creature keeping tips.

[lightingthefireflies]

Can't believe my mom thought is was a bad idea to name my biggest snail Archduke Ferdinand- as if it would be anything other than delightful to see him climbing one of the plants in the tank with some of his buddies and declare "The Archduke is on parade!" and have someone always reply, "Not a great choice for him, historically speaking." Every time.

[voidthedarkrai]

Seller: It could take between an hour and three days for your snail to wake up.

Poggers: HELLO FATHER I KNOW YOU HAVE PREPARED A LOVELY HOME FOR ME TO AWAKE IN BUT I HAVE DECIDED TO AROUSE FROM MY HIBERNATION WITHIN THE THIRTY SECONDS THAT IT WOULD TAKE FOR YOU TO MOVE ME FROM MY TRAVEL CONTAINER TO THE TERRARIUM. I DO HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND.

[dragonscalie]

Look who finally came in! Everyone say hello to Geno!

I'm going to get a bigger cage since he keeps staying at the top which means he isn't getting enough air.

[genuflectx]

Our roommate found this absolute BABY

Now our snail Clover has an even smaller roommate named... [drum roll].... Lentil!! Fiancé named this one :}

We've been trying to find a bigger more adult snail but ended up with this tiny lil friend... it's gonna get lost in the big terrarium hahaha

Also, we found two small mushrooms growing in there. Roomie took them out. A real living terrarium is probably very enriching for the snails but it takes more work than just something with plain soil and little else!

Idk how many snails we'll end up with but so far the terrium has brought me much joy ❤️❤️❤️

[fivetinysnaildictators]

A nice little home

For a nice little snail :)