Acclimating freshwater snails

[mike.d]

Has anyone tried acclimating their own freshwater snails to brackish water?

I have a 1 gallon tank that used to house my remaining red cherry shrimp. Now all I have in there are snails and a plant. I'd like to try acclimating the snails to brackish water, but I'm not sure how much salt to add how often.

If anyone else has done this I'd appreciate some advice.

[MrsT]

Honestly I never acclimating my one and only small nerite horned snail. It's from my previous cherry shrimp tank I gave up. I transferred it straight away.

[JoeG]

I tried acclimating a couple small rams horn snails from the red cherry tank to the Opae Ula tank. I used a yogurt container to hold them in fresh water and then I added 1 tablespoon of brackish water from the Opae tank every 15 minutes or so. I did this for about 6 hours. They were still moving around after the 6 hours so I decided to go ahead and add them to the brackish tank. Well, it did not turn out well, they were all contracted into the furthest inside coil of their shells. The next day they looked the same so I removed them from the tank. Haven't tried it again.

[MrsT]

I read somewhere, ramshorn snail can't survive in brackish.
From freshwater to brackish is challenging, probably the other way round like from saltwater to brackish maybe possible I think. So far only nerite and mts work well in brackish.
Another possibility are those kinda snail that live in mangrove would be able to survive brackish.

[mike.d]

Thanks for the replies. My freshwater snails are ramshorn. They hitched a ride from a bunch of anachris I bought from Petco or Petsmart.

I wonder if a slower acclimation process would work. One person here (https://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/vi ... php?t=7353) said they were able to do it over several weeks.

Looks like my LFS has nerite snails. I may just do that. Thanks for the suggestion!

The reason I'm looking for snails is my tank has a ton of algae. I probably have 75-100 opae in a 10 gallon and they just can't keep up. I'm hoping the snails will balance things out a bit.

[MrsT]

Hi mike.d, if you don't mind the slow process, I would suggest you get only one (olive nerite or horned nerite). Reason is they are so damn hard working, you don't want your 10 gal tank to be too clean.
From my experience Hair algae and blue green algae they don't eat, their food is similar to super shrimp.
Those that they don't eat I'm afraid you have to get rid of it yourself

[JoanToBa]

Hi mike.d, if you don't mind the slow process, I would suggest you get only one (olive nerite or horned nerite). Reason is they are so damn hard working, you don't want your 10 gal tank to be too clean.
From my experience Hair algae and blue green algae they don't eat, their food is similar to super shrimp.
Those that they don't eat I'm afraid you have to get rid of it yourself

Corrected spelling mistakes???

Hi mike.d, if you don't mind the slow process, I would suggest you to get only one snail (olive nerite or horned nerite). The reason is that they are so damn hard working, you don't want your 10 gal tank to be too clean.
From my experience, they don't eat Hair algae or blue green algae, their food is similar to super shrimp.
For those who have snails that don't eat I'm afraid you have to get rid of it (the algae) by yourself

[mike.d]

My nerite snail fail story.

I went to the LFS today (Pet*) and they had nerites for 50% off for Black Friday, $1.27 each. But they were mixed in with mystery snails and no one could tell which one was which. The girl who was helping me called her manager. He gave a vague definition about black mystery snails being all black but black nerites were black with brown stripes. Good deal! I bought 4.

Two were bigger at about an inch and a half. Two were smaller at 3/4". I put the smaller two in my shrimp tank. Came back a few hours later and they had moved about 2 inches. The door at the opening of their shell was hanging half open. The shells were on their sides. Thinking I probably killed them (and that they're mystery snails, not nerites) I moved them into my 50g cichlid tank. They still haven't moved. It's been about an hour.

I put the two bigger ones in the 50 gallon cichlid tank to begin with and they've been doing great. They are moving fast. When we look away for a little while we find them on the other side of the tank.

I'll be more careful where I buy snails from in the future.

[MrsT]

Oh what a mess. So the mystery snails confirm dead?
The bigger ones, are they also mystery snails? Do you have the pic?

[MrsT]

Hi mike.d, hope the other big snails are ok.
As i have only 1 horned nerite, i observe him pretty frequently. My shrimps like to do the upside down stunt on water surface and my nerite likes to climb up on the chaeto.
My tank is a self cleaning tank which there is a tubing where dirty water flowing outwards when I do wc.
The inner tube was full of algae. I swear I wasn't thinking straight one day, i did something crazy.

I catched the nerite and put him in the tube, he went in chomping all those yummy algae down it goes under the gravel. It was dark in there but after a day I hold the tank up high i saw my nerite cleared 70% off the algae or diatom underneath , he then found his way up to the tip of the tube opening on the 3rd day, there I used a small stick to push him out and put him back in with supershrimp.

I have to admit I have got a very smart nerite, it shock me because after few weeks (yesterday) I tried putting him back again, it did the same and came back out.
Here's a pic of him going in the tube I took it yesterday.
And another 2 gifs I made showing it came out just a while ago.

[mike.d]

Yeah a picture would have been great. I didn't think of it in time and now the snails are in the big tank and I can't see them anymore. I think they all survived. They moved from where they landed when I dropped them in. There's a lot of hiding places in there so I'm assuming they weren't cichlid food, but that's a possibility.

I was a little afraid of putting a big snail in my opae tank. I have a pile of lava rocks in one corner that is mostly freestanding and not glued. I'm worried a big snail would knock it down.

[MrsT]

I'm glad to hear that mike.d.
Maybe you can try another pet shop or order it online.
Another easy way is leave your supershrimp tank in the dark for a week or 2.

[mike.d]

Success!! Found a mom and pop LFS and they had zebra nerites! They didn't know what they were. They were in a freshwater tank they had acquired when another store went out of business. She showed me a "freshwater snail living in a saltwater tank." They moved a decoration from freshwater to saltwater and didn't realize the snail was on it. But the snail survived so they left it. I looked in and said, "That looks like a zebra nerite." It was part way out of the water and everything. I bought two, $2 each.

Pet____!! I don't know why I bother with them at all. Well, in my defense, sometimes their non-living stuff isn't bad. I got a good deal on aragonite and marine salt from them.

[MrsT]

I thought you were looking for horned or olive nerite.
I have no experience in zebra nerite. Maybe you can acclimate it first mike.d.

[mike.d]

After reading your posts I wanted a nerite. I didn't care which kind.

The zebras did really well. I dropped them both in my shrimp tank and within a couple of hours they had flipped over and were moving around. No acclimation necessary. Maybe I should have acclimated, but I didn't and they seem fine 24 hours later.

Now I'm kind of hoping I got a male and female. I woudn't mind stocking the cichlid tank with nerites. (They're supposed to be able to stand up well to cichlids.)