newbie needing advice please :)

[mrsb0310]

hi all, hope you can help us. we aquired our giant african land snail last week and i think he is an achatina fulica. hes 5 years old hes been on a diet of left over veg and cuttlefish. the problem is his shell, its really discoloured after the biggest part, then it goes white at the end. the discoloured bits are quite porous aswell. any advice on how to improve his shell? hes fed on cucumer which he loves, apple, lettuce, banana, nectarine, carrot, has water and cuttlefish and yesterday a little crushed eggshell for a change.

have attached a pic to show you what i mean, any advice would be greatlye appreciated as we're all in love with our little GALS...carolgoodfreddie as the kids named him!

ps hes gone a bit whiter since this pic was taken and the tank in the pic is the one he came in but hes getting rehomed in a more exciting, bigger one this weekend!

[danikat]

I think the shell loosing colour is normal for fulica as they get older. I'm not sure what actually causes it but it seems to happen to most of them.

But if you're worried the best thing for shell trouble is to add extra calcium to their diet. You can either crush something like cuttlefish or egg shells and sprinkle it over their food or sometims you can find liquid calcium supplements.

[Bumblebee]

That the shell is porous sounds like he lack calcium to me =/ What you could do is to not only let him have cuttlefish but also use oyster shell powder and sprinkle on his food and some on the substrate so that he can get some more calcium

[muddydragon]

once old shell has discoloured theres nothing you can do about it (some live quite happily without a tip to their shell) they won't recolour it. however you can promote good healthy new growth from near the body of the snail but at 5 years he's probably fully grown but still needs a calcium supply. The best i find is offering a range of calcium supplements, limestone flour is brilliant, you can easily get it off ebay or such places and it lasts forever, just sprinkle some on the food. i use limestone flour, limestone chips, cuttlefish and occasional ground up egg shell, and these seem to work fine!
good luck

[coyote]

Hi mrsb0310, welcome to the forum.

You might try offering collard greens or other foods high in calcium, to help with the shell. Some snails respond well to liquid calcium; others, it doesn't seem to make any difference. My snails love collards whenever I offer them.

The colored part of the shell is a living membrane called the periostracum. The older a snails gets, the more of it that gets worn away, so the shell loses coloration in certain spots. It doesn't hurt the snail, but it doesn't look very pretty either. I don't think anything can be done about that.

I hope some of this is helpful, and please let us know how your snail is doing!

[mrsb0310]

thanks everyone, i really appreciate your advice. ill certainly try the extra calcium to see if it helps. ill try to upload a picture for you all to see just how handsome he is, poor old man!!

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[coyote]

He's quite a big handsome guy, isn't he! I hope the extra calcium helps.