Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

zwergkrebszuechter wrote:Actually blue and red ramshorn snails are the same species. Why should one color morph eat plants and the other does not?
Are you sure that your plants are live and healthy and the snails do not just eat the part rotting away?

That might not be true actually. As far as I know the blues were first bred in Germany, so they are most likely Planorbarius corneus, which is native to Europe. I have heard some reports before that they *might* eat some very fine plants if there isn't enough food for them in the tank.

The "reds" on the other hand, along with the "browns" here in North America are Planorbella duryi, which are endemic to Florida, but have been introduced all the over the world in aquaria due to plant shipments from Florida. Planorbarius gets a lot bigger than the Planorbella and is more likely to eat plants.

So, in the end...they might actually be two different species, although they look very similar.

Thanks Mustafa....i've been wondering what i've been doing wrong to make the blues act so differently to the reds.

Mustafa wrote: That might not be true actually. As far as I know the blues were first bred in Germany, so they are most likely Planorbarius corneus, which is native to Europe. I have heard some reports before that they *might* eat some very fine plants if there isn't enough food for them in the tank.


The "reds" on the other hand, along with the "browns" here in North America are Planorbella duryi, which are endemic to Florida, but have been introduced all the over the world in aquaria due to plant shipments from Florida. Planorbarius gets a lot bigger than the Planorbella and is more likely to eat plants.

So, in the end...they might actually be two different species, although they look very similar.

Thats true, the blue ones were bred in Germany. I know, because I am the one who bred them. To be honest I do not know which species it is. Could be anything, even a crossbreed. They just appeared by chance, I did never bring ramshorn snails into my tanks on purpose. Some years later I posted a picture of a crayfish in a forum, where one could see a blue snail, too. And someone asked what snail that would be. Only then I realized that I have a new color morph of ramshorn snails in my tanks and started selective breeding.

However I do not agree that it is very likely that they are Planorbius corneus. That species never was widely distributed here. It does not like warm water and until people started keeping crayfish and shrimp tanks used to be 24°C or warmer. And people usually do not go out to collect ramshorn snails (which are not easy to find, anyway in many areas). I think it is very likely that they are indeed Planorbella duryi. That is the ramshorn snail people usually have in their tanks. That species is worldwide distributed in freshwater aquaria, just like malaysian trumpet snails and even started wild colonies in many countries. While Planorbius corneus can still be consired very rare.
They do not get as big as Planorbius corneus and look like Planorbella duryi. And their egg clutches look different from that of Planorbius corneus. However I am not a snail specialist who can tell without doubt. There are browns and reds and pink, white, golden, green etc in my tanks. They all behave alike.
They do eat dead critters however, even dad mystery snails, as do almost all of my snail species. But they do not eat live ones.

I think your elodea is different from many plants that are used in aquaria. Because most plants are only semiaquatic or have forefather - species that lived on the land many many years ago. Anacharis never lived on the land, but is a true water plant species. So maybe their chemistry and taste is different from many other aquarium plants and that is why they eat them? Isn`t there a post of a Cambarellus eating anacharis somewhere in this forum, too?

I bought mine from a breeder in America and got the eggs sent over to me....and mine go after my older live bridgesii. Maybe they sense that they are older and perhaps on their way out?

I do not recommend ramshorn in a fish tank as they multiply too quickly, like the physa pond snails. I am in the process of removing all ramshorn snails from my tanks and they are hard to get rid of.

The ramshorns I have are from a pet store's fish tank. They gave them to me free.

Snails, the gift that keeps on giving...

I introduced red ramshorns (the "pest" variety) into my snail tank to get rid of the beginnings of a hydra infestation. It seems to have worked well, as I haven't seen a hydra in there since.

I keep dwarf puffers in a separate tank, and I like to have a source of snails for them, so it works out fine for me

I have kept Amano shrimp in my puffer tank for more than two years, and the Amanos have never had problems. I think I would worry about putting cherry or other small shrimp in there, though, just in case it was too much temptation for the puffers.

Red ramshorn's eat hydra? I have brown ramshorns in my cherry shrimp tank, and the hydra were running amok. I moved out the shrimp and most of the snails, and dosed the tank with copper sulfate solution. After a thorough rinsing of the tank/plants with fresh water 24 hours later, the refugees were returned, and I haven't seen a single hydra since.

Are the red snails the same as the brown ones ? If so I guess once the hydras get out of control the snails can no longer control the hydra population then.

My point is how would they get out of control to begin with, if the snails ate them? The nasty little crittters were all over the glass and plants. If they were only on the plants, I'd think the snails at least got them off the glass, where they would be easier prey. The snails were well-established before the hydra, they were on some plants that were added a couple months after the snails.

Lotus wrote:

I introduced red ramshorns (the "pest" variety) into my snail tank to get rid of the beginnings of a hydra infestation. It seems to have worked well, as I haven't seen a hydra in there since.

Maybe we should ask Lotus since it worked in that instance.

ToddnBecka wrote:

The snails were well-established before the hydra, they were on some plants that were added a couple months after the snails.

Do you think the snails were fed too well and did not need to feed off of the hydra?

I doubt the snails were too well fed, I think it had more to do with the abundance of copepods for the hydra to feed on. Most of those died along with the hydra, and haven't been nearly as plentiful since. There are still a few, but mainly some type of daphnia, or a related species. The cyclops seem to be gone completely.

I think it had more to do with the abundance of copepods for the hydra to feed on.

Thanks for this explaination of why the hydra were out of control.

With the hydra, I read somewhere (might of been here) that red ramshorns would eat them. At that time, I only had brown ones in my shrimp tank, so I added some red ones from another tank. I killed the hydra that I could see with hydrogen peroxide, but I was still seeing one here and there in the tank. The red ramshorns seemed to have done the trick with keeping the hydra away, though.

Of course, I can't completely say that the red ramshorns got rid of the hydra. At the time, the tank was newly set up (a month or so), and other factors may have been at work. I wasn't about to try to remove the shrimp to medicate, and I was worried about babies getting killed by the hydra. That was before I ended up with thousands of cherries!

To be honest, I do like to have snails in my tanks, and the red ramshorns are pretty. They may be common "pest" snails, but I find them useful for cleaning up debris and the occasional dead small fish hidden in heavily planted tanks. I sometimes wonder if my snail-eating fish find they have a different taste than the common brown ones

I keep 7 different species of snails and so far the only ones that I've found not to eat live plants at all are the MTS and brigs "mystery snails". The red and brown ramshorns do eat holes in my softer plants if they aren't finding enough food. I know it was them because I saw them and they were the only animals in the tank. The leaves eaten were green and healthy. I haven't tried my spixis in a planted tank yet so I really don't know about them. I've heard some people say that spixis only eat plants when they are really small and others say they eat plants but not like the ramshorns. They don't reproduce very easily so if they do eat plants I could just remove them easily. I'd love to get some blue ramshorns. This site is the first place I've seen pictures of them. Are they available in the U.S.?

Moni