Update, Snails and Other Stuff

[tigersnail]

Hey everyone,
The other day I released two of my single banded Cepaea nemoralis where I caught them last year. They were not particularly active breeders and I thought I should make room for the next generation. I have six adult Cepaea nemoralis and two juveniles at the moment. I also have about 40 young ones growing fast! I'm interested to see what sort of banding patterns they develop. 
My other species are doing well too. The aquatic snails, Pomacea maculata and Planorbis rubrum, are ravenous eaters. I'm hoping to clean up the 10 gallon I've got them in and eventually put some live plants in. I'll probably only have time to maintain a planted tank after I'm done school though. 
I'm very excited for next week because I'll be travelling to an international conference! Although it is an international conference, it is still in Canada, however it is quite a ways away from where I live. While I'm there I will be doing a presentation on one of the projects I'm working on, but will also be on the lookout for interesting Cepeae morphs, leopard slugs, and possibly copse snails. My colleagues will have to put up with my nerding out for a week
Anyway, that's what I'm up to! Hope everyone's summer is going well!

[seastar]

Wow! That's cool stuff! Good luck with the presentation! 

I have plans for this summer too: I'll be looking for Anguispira alternata at Mont-Royal natural park and I might get Physa fontinalis from a friend! The only problem with the aquatic snails is... eggs. Nobody in my family (and we're a BIG family) like the idea of freezing eggs, so I'm doing some research to check whether or not it's allowed to release eggs in the St-Lawrence river, for example. As for the Anguispira alternata, if there are some at Mont-Royal park, I'll take two, but if I can't find any...

I'm curious: do you know if your snail species can cohabitate with Physa fontinalis? Don't worry, I'm not going to steal them! I'm not a thief!

Have a nice evening!

seastar

[tigersnail]

Hey seastar!
I hope you can find some flamed tigersnails; they're a very cool species.
As for the bladder snails, I wouldn't recommend releasing them in the river unless it is at the site where your friend collected them. Something else to watch out for with bladder snails is that they are a common vector for some parasites. For that reason I probably wouldn't keep them with my apple and ramshorn snails, mostly because I would have to buy more if they died instead of finding more out in the wild (also because I don't want to risk killing any anyway). But you can probably find big ear pondsnails and greater pondsnails in the same area as bladder snails, and I've kept those species together just fine.
I know it is not an appealing thing to freeze and crush eggs, but if you find them early enough all they are is a small sac of basically water. It is not a living thing just yet! Though that is an argument I would not get into.
They breed like rabbits, and so if you cannot release them where they were caught, I would recommend freezing them. For aquatic snails you could probably just bury the eggs as well.

[seastar]

Actually, my friend had her snails by accident, so yeah, maybe releasing them isn't such a good idea. I'll transfer this to my parents, thanks!

Guess I'll be looking for pound snails then... Thank you very much! I'll transfer this to my friend.

Good luck with the living plants!

seastar