How to make liquid calcium?

[katatsumuri]

My snail pair Ameko-Chan and Asahi-Chan are absolutely opposite when it comes to calcium. Asahi-Chan can't get enough of it and nom's it constantly! However, Ameko-Chan is rarely seen using the cuttle bone even at night. I will put Ameko-Chan on the cuttle bone often, but she crawls away from it just as fast. When she was a baby, she would nom it often. Her shell looks a little raw, so I am trying to figure out how to up her calcium sense she is being stuborn. Sorry, I use "he" and "her" because it's easier, I am well aware they are both.

I heard about a liquid calcium for snails that you can spray on...does anyone have a recipe for making it? Maybe this will help Ameko-Chan strengthen her shell.

[coyote]

I have purchased Kent Marine Concentrated Liquid Calcium in the aquarium section of my local pet supply store. It didn't seem to help my snails, but others have said liquid calcium made a dramatic improvement for theirs.

I use powdered limestone blocks I make myself. My snails seem to like those the best.

[katatsumuri]

Thank you for your thoughts. I haven't had the opportunity to work with limestone. Is it expensive? Where can it be purchased? Especially in block form. Is it a hard or soft mineral? If it is a soft mineral that can be carved, maybe I can make a small house out of limestone and Ameko-Chan will sit on the limestone almost constantly. She loves her house. That would be a great solution to the problem.

[coyote]

I got my powdered limestone from eBay, I just did a search. It was very inexpensive. When I got it I took about a teaspoon and mixed it with enough water to get a little gooey and put it into a cleaned bottle cap (or jar lid, whatever small bowl-like item you have on hand to use as a mold). I lined the lid with plastic wrap first to make it easier to remove. Once it was dry (a couple of days), I put it in the tank. My snails now pretty much ignore the cuttle and all go for the limestone block.

[katatsumuri]

Thank you so much teaching me how you use limestone. That sounds like a fantastic opportunity to get creative and make cute things for my snails. I already use a tiny cookie-cutter to make heart-shaped cuttle bone for them. It sounds much more practical to use powdered limestone with a mold! And there are plenty of adorable molds to be found too! ;D

Would you say the finished blocked are soft enough to be carved at all? How hard or soft are the blocks? Or are they brittle maybe?

[coyote]

The relative brittleness would depend on how much water you mixed into the powder. It is something you could experiment with to find the optimal mixture to achieve the texture you want.

I found that it took much less water than I thought to get the right consistency. It's best to start with very little and keep adding than to start with too much because you can't remove water once it's in there.

[katatsumuri]

Arigatou gozaimasu! ;D