Mixing WC and CB snails?

[lau]

Is there any reason (once health is known) to keep wild caught and captive bred snails seperatated?

Many thanks

Laura

[sezzy5889]

there was another thread on this, just trying to find it

[section8angel]

She said once health is known lol.

If you haven't noticed anything bad with the wc, and you've kept it/them seperate for a time you think is right then I don't think there is any reason to still keep them seperate. Unless you want to make sure there is definitely nothing wrong. Or if they're much bigger than your others and your worried they might hurt the smaller ones.

I put my wc margie in with my other snails when I got it because Anjie had had him for a while and hadn't seen anything bad, so as I was short on tank space I put him straight in with the others and it's been fine.

[Deleted]

oh right yeh ive put loads of WC's in with CB's and the CB's have been fine.

[lau]

Nice one, thanks guys

Lau

[graemepryce]

Hi, I've done some reseach on this because I like to have a communal tank with multiple species. I also sell some TB cepaea's in the summer so I need to know that they don't have parasites or mites.

If you want to introduce WC ones I would have a small checklist to put them through first because there ARE things that WC snails can have that will severely affect growth and wellbeing of GALS.

1. Never put them straight into the tank from the wild. They will have remains of food from the last 3 days in their gut. Anything that has survived that is certainly capable of infecting GALS too. Give them at least a week in isolation feeding only calcium and water.

2 Check them carefully for mites. A magnifying glass will help but a watchmakers eyeglass or loupe will be better. Look around the breathing hole area especially. I have seen WC snails that are completely infested with mites. GALS are unhappy if they have mites running in and out of their breathing apparatus.

3. Keep rinsing them daily. It is a little difficult to scrub on shells of smaller species so repeated washing will be better at removing outside soil that may contain eggs of parasites.

4. Get a piece of glass - a left out piece from a photo frame is ideal. Let them crawl out onto it and shine a light from underneath. Some worms and parasites that live within the body can be seen as dark masses or in some cases actual worms moving inside.

Finally - DON'T TAKE PITY ON INFECTED ONES! If there is anything you are unsure about just release them in a suitable place immediately - don't even handle them as some parasites transfer eggs in the mucus. They may live normal lives in the wild - it is not in the interests of most parasites to kill the host unless it enables egg transfer. You are not being cruel if you release an infected snail, it will go on with it's life quite as happily as before.

As for mites - if you see a few and remove them it is NO guarantee that they are all gone, as they live within the lung sometimes. I would recommend leaving any with even one visible mite in the wild - which is where they should really be after all!

Hope that helps. I have been breeding wild species for some time now and I have C.Nemoralis sharing with my GALS and have never had a problem with mites on my GALS.

[Cashell]

graemepryce

"4. Get a piece of glass - a left out piece from a photo frame is ideal. Let them crawl out onto it and shine a light from underneath. Some worms and parasites that live within the body can be seen as dark masses or in some cases actual worms moving inside."


I've never quite heard of this before, but it does sound very interesting! Where did you find this information?

[graemepryce]

I didn't find it - I just worked it out for myself. I noticed when I first started getting albino or leucistic species that you can see through them with a very bright light and watch their food going up into the shell. At the time I had some brown cepaea.H that I had picked up in my garden and I tried it with them. I immediately spotted a long white line coming from the shell to near the left eye stalk on one. I thought it was a stripe - until it moved! Needless to say, I put him straight back out, into a hanging basket in my yard. I noticed the same little guy crawling happily up the wall a few days later and removed him from the corner of my window a few days after that. Haven't seen him since but I wasn't going to risk seeing a worm inside one of my GALS by mixing him with them.

After that I also had one where there was a dark mass inside one side of his head and it seemed listless and uninterested in food so I guessed it was a sign of something wrong and released that one also.

Obviously this check is a LOT easier with lighter coloured bodies but can still be useful with darker ones also.

Thanks for the reply. :-)

[Cashell]

Jun 30, 2013 18:58:40 GMT graemepryce said:

I didn't find it - I just worked it out for myself. I noticed when I first started getting albino or leucistic species that you can see through them with a very bright light and watch their food going up into the shell. At the time I had some brown cepaea.H that I had picked up in my garden and I tried it with them. I immediately spotted a long white line coming from the shell to near the left eye stalk on one. I thought it was a stripe - until it moved! Needless to say, I put him straight back out, into a hanging basket in my yard. I noticed the same little guy crawling happily up the wall a few days later and removed him from the corner of my window a few days after that. Haven't seen him since but I wasn't going to risk seeing a worm inside one of my GALS by mixing him with them.

After that I also had one where there was a dark mass inside one side of his head and it seemed listless and uninterested in food so I guessed it was a sign of something wrong and released that one also.

Obviously this check is a LOT easier with lighter coloured bodies but can still be useful with darker ones also.

Thanks for the reply. :-)

Cool discovery! Some of my brown lipped snails are pretty dark, so I'm hoping they won't be too hard to check, while others are really pale!