How active is active?

[supinesophie]

I have an adult achatina achatina (14 cm shell), probably caught in the wild. He's my first GALS so I'm not sure how his behaviour should be like.

I'm worried because he's quite inactive. He only gets out of his shell maybe once a day and slimes around a bit and eats. The rest of the sime he spends more or less burrowed in the substrate.

Though I usually wake him up a couple of times a day also, to make sure that he eats and to bath him. I'm worried he'll just stay in his shell forever if I don't'.


I know that the wrong inviroment in the tank can cause inactivity. I haven't got a hygrometer yet so I don't know about the humidity, but I know the temperature is usually around 27-28 when the heat lamp is on and around 22-23 at night when it's not. He also has a little heat mat. He likes to sleep close to it at night when the temp drops.

So my question is: How active should a big snail be? What's normal and what's not?

[Bumblebee]

Well I dont got any a. achatina, so im not sure how they are and what conditions they need... I only two fulica and two reticulata, and they sleep most of the day too and move around a bit to find a new sleeping spot.
And almost every day I wake them up somewhere around 15:30 - 16:00 to prepare their dinner and also give them a little shower and then let them slime around on top of the tank while I clean the inside walls/roof of the tank. Then I just put my snails in, they either nibble a bit at their food and then find some place to sleep, either in the ivy, some plantpots or directly on the tankglass, only to slowly wake up later around 20:00, and being awake for...No clue how long they are awake, I go to bed around 22:00-23:00 and they are up even then, so they are probably real party beasts that prefer night time

Snails are mostly nocturnal, does your snail eat much? And when he sleeps, does he retract himself into the shell?

Ive noticed that my snails never really sleep retracted at all, they always got some centimeter of body outside the shell, so I take it a bit that they are doing all good.

Maybe he wants a friend? Cause before I got my first snails I did read that they can become a bit more active if they had a tank-buddy, so I got myself four snails and I have to admit, they seem to like company, ive seen my snails several times either sleeping next to eachother or just sliming in the same direction.

[Dusk]

Tigers are often amazingly lazy compared to any other kind of snail! In his glass tank, Skan woke up maybe even less than yours does, but I replaced them all with opaque tanks with one glass wall, and since then he's been far more active and apparently so have the other two as they're producing eggs now

[supinesophie]

Sid has some of his foot out when he sleeps, but the head is always in the shell. I'll get a photo of it. One though, he was quite retracted, I only saw a little bit of his foot when I looked into the shell.

[siobhanc54]

My tigers are really lazy, I don't wake them in the day unless they are to have a bath but when I feed my snails at approx 1am they are always asleep and I do wake them up so I know they get the opportunity to eat before my retics eat everything, have wondered if I didn't wake them up would they ever get up themselves.

[nicolasnail]

From what I've heard and read Tigers don't take temperature change well as in their natural habbitat it stays near a constant 30c.
My tigers have improved a lot since I made it warmer for them, their even out and about during the day.
I used to have a humidity reader but it was useless as moisture kept going in mine and saying it was 100% humidity when it wasn't.
I spray once in the morning, when I come home from work and before I go to bed, afterwards it looks nice and steamy and they become really active for a few hours till the humidity drops.

I had the same problem with my tigers when I first had them and it was really worrying but their great now since I did all of the above.

What's he like to handle?
I always wondered whether wildcaughts would be more shy, there again my garden snails don't seem to give a rats arse if you pick them up and even let you stroke their necks .

[supinesophie]

He was a little shy at first, but now he lets me stroke his foot and neck and even the head, as long as I don't touch his eyes he's fine with it.

The temerature is quite warm now with the new lamp but it seems to also dry out the substrate.. I'm getting some moss soon though, and that should keep moisture better.

[nicolasnail]

They do like moss over substrate I've found.
Soon as I put it in my tank the ones who lay eggs would lay it in moss rather than the coir.
The margies also love sleeping in it, more so if it's sopping wet.
So I've got a wet side of the tank and a damp side and a water bowl in the middle, they seem to like both sides and I often see them going back and forth.
The tigers are funny they sleep on the back of their shell with their foot hanging out, was worried first time I saw it and thought it was doing the cliche dead thing.
It seems though he's sort of basking in the moisture and warmth as it were lol.

[supinesophie]

I'm trying to get my local pet store to order some moss, but they are sooo slow!

[nicolasnail]

Have you tried ebay?
I got a kilo of the stuff for a couple of quid, was lovely and moist and organic apparently.
What ever it is they lurve it ;D.

Found MORE eggs again today and my octana have had more babies lalal