Shell problems?

[Selena]

I have a lot small fulicas (Dark, white jades) several sizes from 1 till 4 centimeter. I also have six young immaculatas and my three albopicta’s are also still growing.
A lot of the small snails, especially the ones who grow fast, seemed to have problems with their shells. They have simptomes from a lack of calcium, but also symtomes from an overload of calcium. Some of them have both at the same time. So i really do’nt understand what causes those problems.
These are the problems :
Grooves on the surface of the shell
Dents and cracks
Soft area near the shell opening.
White/yellow calcium deposits between the grooves
Very thin pieces (transparant like paper) of shell peel off the surface of the shell.
Sometimes i find a bigger pieces, peeled of from the area near the opening of the shell.
The big snails dont have those problems, even the big ones who are still growing haven’t.
The big ones have sometimes problems with the grow line, shell that has grown just, sometimes will break easely and there will be a sharp edge.
So i am wondering what is going on.

[etana]

There are more factors to bad shell growth than just calcium - vitamin d deficiency, wrong handling, damage from falling, acidic soil, way too wet soil, to name a few (others may be able to name more). Also the White jades are quite inbred, which can mean bad genes.

It's normal that a young snail's shell is very fragile at the front edge, but what do you mean with the soft area?

[Selena]

Hi Etana, Thanks!
I checked everyting. To wet soil can be one of the causes for sure. I have problems with the soil from the beginning. It is way to wet. once a week i need to sqeeze al the water out of it en mix the wet substrate with dry (to absorb more water)
But frequently it is too wet for the snails. sometimes, when it is getting too wet again, They even do not want to sleep or sit on the soil anymore, ore they will be retract deeply, because it is too wet. is there a way to solve this problem? Or is it usual to sqeeze the water out, every week?
Why are white jades inbret? I did not know that. Because theire genes are recessive, right? a lot of my baby fulica's are inbret as well. I think many petsnail are.
Vit D deficiency can be caused by a lack of sunlight, right? So, how many sunlight do achatinas need? And helix aspersa?
Yesterday, somebody told me: shell problems could also appear when shells are growing too fast. par example: by feeding them chicken layer palets, cat and dogfood, sweet potato too frequently. So maybe this is an problem to.

[Selena]

I forgot: I meand with 'soft area' like you said: fragile at the front edge, i did't find the right word to discribe.

[etana]

Okay, umm. I can't give exact advice on coco fibers, but I've definitely heard of other forum members squeezing excess water out of it regularly.

Yeah White jade are inbred because of the recessive albino genes. With snails, the problems from inbreeding don't show as quickly as they do with most mammals etc, but they too have a point when too much is too much, and they get ill from it.

Sunlight: Yes, lack of light can cause vitamin D deficiency. Snail tanks should never be in direct sunlight because they can heat up very quickly, but it's good if they can get a reasonable amount of daylight. I keep my tanks in a room that doesn't get direct sun, but I open the curtains every day. I don't know about the daylight preferences of different species though. I'm also not sure about what happens with the individual snails who only move at night and burrow extra deep to sleep for the day, every day. :/
There's vitamin D in some supplements, such as certain brands of fish food. I've been thinking of feeding that kind of things to the ones who don't ever get daylight on them.

I've not heard of sweet potato causing growth problems, but animal protein (meat, cat/dog food, fish flakes, boiled eggs etc) doesn't need to be fed to snails more often than max once a week. I think excess protein can be linked to weird growth.

That's good that you meant that with the 'soft area'. Don't worry about that, all growing snails have it to some extent. Just be careful not to touch it when you handle your snails. Luckily, they can fix it quite well if it breaks when they bump it into things or something.

[muddydragon]

the advice etana gives is excellent

there's also some natural sources of vitamin D such as eggs and mushrooms so make sure to include some in their diet if they don't get some sunlight (non direct) note that some plastics interfere with teh UV needed to produce Vit. D.

Regarding wet coir some causes of coir getting too wet too fast include:
overcrowding,
too much misting,
leaving foods in a long time (going mushy),
snails tipping over any water dish they may have.

You can just wring out coir when it is too wet.

Most of your snails are fairly new (i believe?) and have been in bad conditions previously sadly the shell grown during those conditions will always remain bad (unless we're talking crack repair) there's nothing you can do about that. Damage to the front of the shell (the delicate growing area) can cause prolonged growth problems occasionally especially if the damage is at the edge where it joins the previous whorl, avoiding touching the snail atall can help as the repair growth is extremely fragile. Make sure you are not picking the snails up by their shell it's extremely easy to put a finger through a growing area instead slide a finger under them when removing them from glass/plastic, if also holding the shell hold it well back away from the growing area.

There's a lot of heavy inbreeding in fulica (white jades are just a colour form of fulica) and genetic problems especially with growth are quite common. I would say there's more inbreeding in fulica than other species of pet snails mainly because a lot of the fulica seen for sale are bred by people who aren't looking to improve the genetics and crossing unrelated members of the same species but by breeding their pets that were probably siblings that they got from someone who bred their pets who were probably siblings and so on and so forth. Typically they are also fairly new to snails and do not appreciate the overcrowding of fulica in snail world nowadays they are given away for free. it's also easy to miss the odd one of their eggs, i have a couple of likely heavily inbred fulica that are missed eggs from that tank who are very small and i'm sure this is due to several years of inbreeding. theres also a lot of breeding of fulica for the reptile food trade which of course they dont care how inbred they are. Snails are more resistant to inbreeding than most species however there is a limit. i have seen far more genetic growth problems in fulica than any other snail species.

[Selena]

Hi,

I do not know for sure if it is a lack of vitamine D. Because with me, they will get enough daylight, but is dont know how it was before. So with a lack of vit D, they can insert calcium as much as they could, but their metabolism is not able to process the calcium. So indirect will cause a lack of vit D a lack of calcium, right?
Is it possible to feed them extra vit D, just in case there is a lack? Or can it result in an overload vit D, in case there is no lack?

what kind of shell problems will too wet soil causes? so can wet substrate even cause shell problems if the snails never touch the ground? Only an hour a day?

My soil is often to wet and my snails showed me they hate it. they all (also the big ones)sleeping and resting on the ceiling.
I sqeeuze the water out and mix the old substrate with dry cocossoil. But it went too wet very fast.
For sure too much misting is the reason, i try to reduce misting.

im still suprised about how sensitive snails are. For humidity, temperature, wet, dry.... especially the older ones are very sensetive, Today one of them was extreme deeply retracted!! i never saw that before. It was that deep he had problems to came out again. He turned his big body to get that deep in the shell. when he wants to get out again his body was stucked in the shell opening. Even one of his eyes stalks was stucked and he seemed completely wrinkeled. It took quite long till he came out normal. First i thought he was very ill, but did not understand it because he was very active and he just took a bath before he went to sleep and retract so deep.
Then i found out the heating mat near he was sleeping did not work anymore. That side is near my window (not isolated glass) so it felt cold in that corner he was sleeping. So i think that is the reason he retracted that deep.

[muddydragon]

yes a lack of vit D will cause calcium absorbtion problems however if they're getting some indirect sunlight they should be fine, but as i said you can offer foods containing vit D such as boiled eggs and mushrooms.

too wet soil tends to cause increased speed in greying of the shell, it also increases the acidity of the substrate. to wet can cause general growth problems.

Yes cut down on misting - my tanks are set up so i very rarely mist their tanks and they're naturally humid (i perhaps mist their tanks oncce a fortnight or so)

Snails often sleep on the lid of tanks this is normal behaviour. i suspect it is a defence mechanisms, in the wild they would hang from the branches of trees and therefore not be visable to arial predators and look like strange growths on the tree.

Yes they are very particular about temperature (to an extent) it is very warm where they are from. It's always a good idea to keep a spare heatmat around incase it breaks down. Also this may be a worthwile read : petsnails.proboards.com/thread/14425/prepared-winter

[Selena]

Hi muddydragon,

Thanks for your advise, it is very helpfull. So what kind of mushrooms will they like? could they eat any kind of mushroom (we also could eat)
I don't think there is a lack of sunlight, because theire container is located near my windows. I have very high and big windows and many daylight. Tropical plants also do well. But, before i located the container at a darker place, far from the windows, in combination with the short days in this period, maybe they had received too less sunlight. But it was only for a month or something. I will feed them mushrooms and maybe a boiled egg.
So you do not have to mist a few times a day? Sometimes i try to do it once a day and the humidity stays about the 70-75% but, it is on the edge of the save zone, is'nt it?
I have 3 heating mats hanging on each wall, exept the front doors. the heating mats will cover 1/3 part of the glass. The temperature in the container is not on each spot the same. Near the window its 23 degrees, near the front 24, and the other area is 26 degrees.

But maybe the conditions are not the cause of the problems. I often think it depends on me, but maybe it is the result of the bad conditions and inbret. Yeah, i have red that thread allready, thanks!! it is very usefull!

[muddydragon]

i actually suspect that they can eat a lot of mushrooms & fungi we can't eat too (many wild snails do). I just give my guys the "standard" mushrooms you can get in a supermarket.

No you do not as long as the humidity is OK. Basically if you have a lot of ventilation you have to spray a lot as you lose a lot of the humidity but the soil ends up wet (the air will only be as humid as the air outside the tank in your house) therefore if you limit the ventilation you don't need to spray as much and the humidity remains more constant and is better for the snails. you can always put a dish of water in next to the heatmat this will evaporate and help keep humidity up.

A gradient of temperatures is good no problem there