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Post by jlfireweed on Sept 22, 2012 6:46:49 GMT
I recently found 3 garden/land snails in the backyard and have placed them in a 2-gal glass tank with dirt, food and water. I've noticed that one of the snails in particular frequently latch onto the shells of the other 2. Both snails have visible damage to their shells, with one nearly losing all of its outter coloring, which was once a gorgeous orange with black swirls. I've also seen that orange snail stretch over his own shell, which I'm afraid he may also be eating away at. I leave bits of cuttlefish bone in the tank at all times, as well as sprinkling powdered cuttlefish bone over their lettuce and carrots, which I refresh about every couple days. I don't want their shells any further damaged as I'm worried that would put them at risk. I also do not want to have to isolate any of them - what can I do to keep them from eating away at their shells? Also, is there anything I can do to help with the shell repair?
Thank you for any advice you can provide!
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Post by vallery on Sept 22, 2012 9:12:03 GMT
Hi Jlfireweed , I am not sure if this will help but I make a powder of brown egg shell and cuttlefish bone and mix in some goldfish food and sprinkle it on my snails food and around on their dish. I do this everyday. I had a real problem with them rasping on each others shells and their own and the shells were fading. The problem eventually stopped and the shells repaired themselves. I was fortunate with this I hope it works out for you. Tsrebel also helped out by letting me know to keep the youngsters in another tank as they will rasp on the adult shells. vallery
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Post by pinkunicorn on Sept 22, 2012 23:49:26 GMT
I'd recommend extra protein as well. Fish food is good, just check the ingredients list. Fish/shellfish should be the first ingredient, it indicates a good quality food. Grain-based foods are much cheaper. If you must settle for a grain-based check that it has raw protein at least 20% and has added vitamins and minerals. The higher the protein percentage the better since these foods are mainly used for protein supplementation for snails, to replace the carrion they eat in nature. I like the Tetra brand, they use fish, shrimp, shellfish and algaes as the main ingredients, and grains as a additional texture ingredient.
Also look at the form the food is provided in. All dry food needs to be soaked, but for some a spray is enough whilst others require a proper soaking of at least 15mins or until fully softened. The harder and denser the pellet/stick is the longer the soaking needed so it's safe to eat. Flakes are good to eat with a spraying.
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Post by jlfireweed on Sept 23, 2012 6:05:41 GMT
Thank you, Vallery and pinkunicorn! I will try mixing in the powdered egg shells and fish food into their diet. I'm very relieved to hear that the shells can repair themselves. I appreciate your insight! Just joined this forum, looking forward to further discussions with you guys!
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Post by vallery on Sept 24, 2012 11:30:08 GMT
Hi jifireweed , Your very welcome. I wanted to mention that I also scrap off cuttlefish bone into my brown eggshell and Gold fish food mixture, as mine don't seem to go for the piece of cuttlefish bone as much as I would like. I powder it all in a mortar and pestle. After sprinkling it on their food I give it a small spray of water to moisten it. They always eat the mixture before going for the veggies. Hope this will help. Good luck. vallery
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Post by jlfireweed on Sept 25, 2012 6:20:47 GMT
I picked up Tetra brand goldfish flakes today and added them to their dish of carrots and lettuce. I also picked up a powdered calcium containing oyster shells and sprinkled that over the food as well. It's been a couple of hours and the snails haven't moved from their posts. I had drizzled drops of water over the flakes and may have over-soaked the flakes. How long do you generally leave the flakes in there before it goes bad and needs to be refreshed? And would they still like it if it's too wet? Thanks for your input!
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Post by vallery on Sept 25, 2012 11:11:20 GMT
Mine usually eat up the mixture I powder right away. You could try placing the snails on the veg with sprinkled moisentened food to see what they do.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Sept 25, 2012 23:30:37 GMT
Mine sometimes eat it right away and sometimes they don't touch it. They appear to have odd preference cycles. So, I offer a little bit every couple of days and if they want fish food dinner that evening I give them more!
In my tanks fishfood stays edible 1-3 days. It seems to depend more on the type of food than humidity, plus where the food is placed. On top of veg it spoils quick, but on the walls it doesn't tend to get moldy even if it dries and moistens again when I spray the tank.
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Post by vallery on Sept 26, 2012 18:27:07 GMT
Man! My little ones must be real crazy munchers they gobble up the mixture I make and go for the veg every day as soon as I feed them. They only leave cucumber peels.
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Post by jlfireweed on Sept 29, 2012 6:25:31 GMT
My little guys ended up eating all the soaked fish flakes over a couple of days. I think I've found a good combination since then, which is what I've been feeding them for the last few days: fresh, shredded lettuce, sprinkled with fish flakes, which takes in some of the moisture from the lettuce, topped with calcium powder - and they LOVE it! It almost seems like I'm building them a salad Ohh, very exciting news tonight! I discovered a clump of white eggs just below their water bowl in the soil. I hope to see them hatch successfully. Have you guys gone through that process? I would love your pointers!
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Post by vallery on Oct 1, 2012 4:10:49 GMT
Hi Jlfireweed , Congratulations on your eggs. From my experience The eggs hatch from two to three weeks and I generally move the eggs into a baby tank mainly because when they are born they are so small it is hard to clean the adult tank with all the little babies in there. Also I had a problem before with babies in the tank and the adults shells going white. Tsrebel helped with that he suggested the babies where probably rasping on the adult shells for calcium so I removed them then and the problem was cleared up. Hope this helps a little. Shaydeesnail also suggested putting the babies in small tubs and as they grow enlarge the size of the tub. vallery
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Post by jlfireweed on Oct 4, 2012 0:29:29 GMT
Thank you, Vallery! I've been checking up on the eggs a few times a day to look for any new movements. Through the small break in the soil, I could see just a few eggs, but there seems to be a healthy pile hidden in the soil. I'm afraid to move/touch anything around the eggs, so I guess there's really no way to tell how many there are until they hatch. I heard the eggs need a warm and humid environment to hatch- did you do anything special to your eggs, like spray the soil with water or add a heater? I've been giving the soil light sprays, but also afraid to get them too moist. Did you keep your tank at a certain temperature? Mine's about 65-73 F. I also read that sometimes after mating, BOTH snails will each lay eggs- did that happen to yours? I'm wondering if there could be another mysterious bundle of eggs hidden somewhere in the dirt that I don't see... Sorry, many questions!!!
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Post by gunshotglitter on Oct 4, 2012 13:43:35 GMT
I always remove the eggs from the adult tank by gently removing the soil around it and picking up the eggs with a plastic spoon. Then I put them in what I call an 'incubator box' which is a small plastic box with moisted cotton on the bottom AND on top. I then leave them like this (the eggs don't need oxygen) somewhere warm. Your temperature seems fine for adult and already hatched aspersas, but I think it would be preferable to put it up a few degrees so they would hatch faster. When they hatch I leave them in the incubator for a few more days (they eat their egg shell and it seems to be important not to skip this part). So after 2-3 days when they start getting up to the lid, I give them a bigger tub with food and calcium. When I did this last time, I've had 155 eggs and 146 have successfully hatched (yes I counted, im that weird ). Yes, both snails will lay eggs. But if you have gotten them from the wild not long ago, you can't know if they have mated or not. Snails (at least not garden snails) don't have an exact pregnancy time, they pretty much decide on their own when they will fertilize their eggs and lay them. It depends more on the type of soil and humidity than the fact that they have recently mated. Snails are awesome like that. ^^
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Post by vallery on Oct 4, 2012 14:15:35 GMT
I usually gently remove any clutches of eggs with a spoon and with some of the soil from the tanks into a baby tank. Most of the time mine lay their eggs in the plant pots in the tank so I remove the plants and put the entire pot into the baby tank. I also started to add soil pots and they lay eggs in them and I just put the pot in the baby tank until the babies have hatched then remove the pot and put it back in the Adult tank. I have been having some difficulties that I posted about the babies going to the top and staying there. I keep the room my snails are in at 75. I don't use heat mats or anything. I do an egg sweep of the entire Adult tanks about once a week. I generally remove everything so I can also do a good cleaning. Then I gently go through the soil with a paint brush ( suggestion by coyote)so when I find a clutch in the soil instead of a pot I remove them as I said above to the baby tank. My Adult P.Isabella's sent from England and my Adult unbanded cepaeas sent from England are in the same tank. The baby P.Isabella's do great and stay down in the bottom of the tank baby tank. But the baby cepaeas go to the top so I have been gently putting them down with their food using a paint brush. I am going to try to figure out a way of making some sort of stand with their food on it closer to the top where they seem to cluster. Sorry for so much information. A lot of trial and error with babies in baby tanks and still figuring things out after years. I do keep the Baby tank moist. And I feed them exactly what I feed the Adults just mash it up. But I always remove the eggs from the adult tank. No harm done so far moving them just scoop the spoon under the clutch and gently lift them out soil and all. Hope this helps a little. vallery
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Post by pinkunicorn on Oct 4, 2012 22:11:33 GMT
Yes, both snails will lay eggs. But if you have gotten them from the wild not long ago, you can't know if they have mated or not. Snails (at least not garden snails) don't have an exact pregnancy time, they pretty much decide on their own when they will fertilize their eggs and lay them. It depends more on the type of soil and humidity than the fact that they have recently mated. Snails are awesome like that. ^^ Ahh the reproductive life of snails... any member of the species you meet will do, sometimes more than one at once. First court the other for hours, then several more hours of copulation. If you happen to be a slug all this might involve bashing your mate with your penis, hanging from a slime rope while doing it or biting your own or your mate's penis off once done. If you're a snail you might spend the foreplay trying to harpoon your mate with a hormone-laced spike whilst dodging your mate's harpooning attempts. Preferably you'll do all this many times before laying eggs to get a nice sampling of sperms to choose from, when you finally feel it's time to dump your 100+ offspring to fend for themselves and off you go again! That's just four species described, at least 59994 different methods left. But what's common to them all is that their brains are highly specialised to handle all that.
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Post by gunshotglitter on Oct 5, 2012 8:39:30 GMT
^ Gotta love 'em!! lol ;D ....or biting your own or your mate's penis off once done. Really?
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Post by pinkunicorn on Oct 5, 2012 9:32:16 GMT
Yeah. Banana slugs are famous for that, and apparently it also occurs among leopard slugs. I have video footage of my slugs mating and one protruding no penis whatsoever and this has been repeated a few times judging by the evidence sperm blob the other slug leaves behind... I've found the slime ropes and the white stuff that *ahem* the slug produces in the video three times in addition to witnessing it happen. There is a topic in Problems forum somewhere, I will update it when I'm finished with my communications with the pros about this.
There is also a laboratory footage from a researcher of banana slugs in action including the act of apophallation. If I recall right in that video the slug ate the penis too. The hypotheses are that it either gets stuck if they chew own penis, or that it's a method of preventing the other from mating again, thus securing sperm selection, a bit like Helicidae snails do with love darts. Then again some literature says apophallated slugs mate as females only. I guess this only works in species that have a Tab A -> Slot B kind of genitals, but what about leopard slugs that hang from ropes and wrap their genitals together in a flower? Another question I'm on a mission to solve.
Gotta love gastropod kind!
Edit: oh I've observed a kind of love dart in the Spanish slug, Arion vulgaris. I've found two odd curved, fishbone resembling material... things stuck in my Arions after matings. Haven't researched this yet though.
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Post by jlfireweed on Oct 6, 2012 6:27:40 GMT
Thank you everyone for the helpful pointers! It's been a week since I first noticed the eggs. No signs of hatching yet Wow, so much to learn about their mating and reproduction process! I'm estimating maybe 40-50 eggs in that clutch. Gosh, what do you guys normally do with your clutches off 100+ baby snails?? I saw my 2 capea hortensis "courting" yesterday. They were biting each other and slithering over each other. Maybe I'll see more eggs soon!
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Post by gunshotglitter on Oct 6, 2012 7:42:27 GMT
Gosh, what do you guys normally do with your clutches off 100+ baby snails?? I'm still pretty new to snail keeping, so this is the first generation of baby snails that I have now. When they grow I'll either sell them or put them back in the wild when spring comes (for native species). For now I keep them all to see how fast they grow and what's best for them.
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Post by vallery on Oct 6, 2012 14:17:42 GMT
I have in the past sent my cepaeas as gifts to other forum members and kept a few myself the rest I set free in the spring in an open outdoor cepaea snailarium I made. Through out the summer months I generally bury the eggs in my outdoor cepaea snailarium. It is to cold here now for that so I will continue to let them hatch and release them in the spring and I will be sending some more to other forum members as gifts and keep a few myself.
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Post by pinkunicorn on Oct 6, 2012 15:44:15 GMT
Since your snails are from your garden, you can release the extra babies into the garden next spring when it's warm enough again. Their instinct to hibernate the next winter is built-in and will kick in when the weather gets cool enough, even if they don't hibernate on their first year, so they will make it again to the following spring and continue the population of garden snails in your area. Of course, some will not make it, but that's life in the wild. If you don't mind your garden being nibbled by snails you could turn it into a sanctuary for snails like Vallery has done. Lots of good hiding spots, piles of leaves when autumn comes to hibernate in, perhaps even put vegetable matter from your kitchen (like potato peels etc) into your garden for the wild snails to eat and flourish. Then even if you can't keep hundreds of babies in your house you're caring for them in the wild. And they will congregate in your garden if it's nice and protected, with food sources and places to rest and hide. Discarded pottery, sticks and natural branches are also appreciated. Snails are also drawn to calcium, so some calcium carbonate spread over the foods or soil will keep them happy.
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Post by vallery on Oct 6, 2012 19:01:59 GMT
Yes like pinkunicorn says if you make the area you want in your yard as an outdoor sanctuary the do really stay within it. They leave the rest of the garden alone. They all congregate as pinkunicorn said. It is wonderful on a summer night to go out and watch them sliding around on there sticks and leaves and up an down the brush that is just behind there main area. Or out in the day after a rain. I have a lot of pictures on the cepaea thread of the out door snailarium I will put up some new Autumn ones. I provide them with what they need. I do find a lot of predators which I carefully and gently remove and relocate. Like Dekay snakes and oxy's and leopard slugs. They get to go to a lovely garden in a park a block or so away from me. Lots of snacks there for them. much nicer garden then mine. vallery
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Post by pinkunicorn on Oct 6, 2012 20:20:58 GMT
Do the leopards in your area actually predate snails? I've heard that they rarely hunt and kill, and most often eat carcass and dead snails. And that when they do kill it's other slugs. Oxys are a different deal, of course, they hunt for real!
I wish I had a garden like that. I have to settle for my balcony with three species that I've found so far as far as slugs and snails go.
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Post by vallery on Oct 6, 2012 20:40:48 GMT
Hi pinkunicorn , Yes the leopards here do eat the cepaeas, and as well go for the shells for calcium, the leopards still have a small shell close to their head under their skin since evolving from snails you can feel around and you will find it's location. They crush the cepaea shells no problem I have found them out on the walk beside the sanctuary having dinner. I have taken about 12 out so far and kept some for a while (I Love Them) but I have no Idea how to care for them at all so I began relocating them to that really nice garden a block or so away, lots of snails there for them and a great big beautiful garden. I don't think it would be a problem having an open outdoor snailarium on a deck or balcony. They really don't stray. If they have everything they need. I honestly think it would be possible to have one on your deck or balcony. I would love to design a plan for something like that with you. I would love to have a smaller one on my own deck. vallery
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Post by pinkunicorn on Oct 8, 2012 17:21:42 GMT
Wow, that's quite something from the leopards! I've not observed them in the wild, and they have not been too interested in my little sluggies as a food source either during the times I've put some into the leopard slugarium. Mine also do not touch cuttle bone, though I have one offered. I'll send you mail about the balcony snailery.
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