Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Is it possible to acclimate other species (besides the commonly sold for FW) of nerites to FW? Or other species of SW snails?

Nerite snails that live in freshwater are not acclimated saltwater snails. They are just extremely adaptable. Everyone knows by now that olive nerites can be kept in full freshwater, but when I first started telling people that virgin nerites (that's the common name, not because they are virgin or anything) can be kept in freshwater I got lots of emails telling me it's nonsense and that they are saltwater animals etc..etc. Of course these people did not know what they were talking about.

The truth of the matter is that there are some nerite snail species that *naturally* occur in both freshwater and saltwater and everything in between. A species like that is called a "euryhaline" species in scientific circles. I have observed and caught virgin nerites in freshwater rivers as full adults and they are still living and thriving in my freshwater tanks after 2 years.

I would not suggest trying with other nerite species unless you know what you are doing, i.e. you have done the research about the particular species. Many, if not most, nerites are saltwater species and would not survive in a freshwater setup. You cannot just acclimate a saltwater species to freshwater. The species has to be a euryhaline species to begin with.

Thanks for the info. I had read somewhere that olive nerites could be acclimated from SW, and wondered why some of the other species weren't kept in FW as well.
I see pictures of some other interesting FW species occaisonally, but never in the US. Is it illegal to import other types?

Mustafa wrote:I got lots of emails telling me it's nonsense and that they are saltwater animals etc..etc. Of course these people did not know what they were talking about.

Yes, you are right. I got some some strange e-mails too when I started breeding some of european nerites (Theodoxus fluviatilis). With a lot of success. These snails are quite easy to handle and they reproduce very fast. Some photos of them i my freshwater tank.
http://img177.imageshack.us/my.php?image=limaki2ab5.jpg
http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=limaki3gr8.jpg
http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=limaki4wr2.jpg
http://img177.imageshack.us/my.php?image=limaki1on1.jpg

Thanks for the information.

Allex, are all of your pictures from a fresh water tank?

Yes these are pure freshwater, I breed them, too. There are several Theodoxus species with interesting coloration. Unfortunately all stay very small, about 7mm to 1cm

Neonshrimp wrote:Thanks for the information.

Allex, are all of your pictures from a fresh water tank?

Yes, like zwergkrebszuechter said, all of them live and breed in fresh water tank. They feed mainly on diatoms and are very good at it too.

They feed mainly on diatoms and are very good at it too.

Pretty useful in a shrimp tank then. I will try to see how they do in one of my tanks before I put them in all of them. Do they produce a lot of waste, anything like apple snails?

On the contrary. They make little excrements, just like shrimp (well, maybe even less). Unlike nerites, apple snails are known to make a lot of waste.

Those snails are beautiful Allex. I sure wish I could find something like that in my neck of the woods.

I agree, it seems to be much more difficult to find these snails compared to other kinds of snails. But isn't there a problem with their eggs and staining of the tanks or am I thinking of the wrong snails?