Apple Snail Farm.

[NOP]

Okay so a about 2 months ago i researched around and found out land snails are practically impossible to get other than a few lucky finds in a garden. (which i dont have) So i did some more research and found out that most people say that a common aquarium pet the Apple Snail (Golden Mystery Snail) can also be eaten if they snails are taken care of properly and kept alive for an extended period of time to ensure they are healthy. And therefore i decided to go buy a small 2 gallon aquarium and 4 Apple snails to put in it. Now i have absolutely zero experience with any fish or aquariums so this was a bit of a challenge for me with keeping them alive and keeping the tank clean and the right filter and all kinds of hassle i hadn't counted on, and because of this very early on i ended up losing 1 snail but after a few weeks i got it down on how to keep much better care of them. And after 2 months of the remaining 3 being very healthy and alive i decided it was time to see how my 1 year old Indonesian would take to them. So i scooped the snails up rinsed them off a bit sprinkled a lil bit of Cal on em and put them on a plate beside his usual Kale,Blueberry,Banana and some canned zoo med food mixed in and went to serve them. Now my guy "Indiana" had to my knowledge had never seen a snail before in his life but apparently automatically knew that they were food and that they were delicious. He went right to them completely ignoring his favorite Zoo Med food and just picked them up one after the other and crunched them down and licked his lips clean before i had realized i should be filming this. So apparently he loves them and i decided i will provide them for him in the future and ended up getting a great deal on a 29 gallon fish tank and stand from my friend who wanted my lil guys Old cage so it turned out good for bolth of us. And so i will now begin the process of fixing up a larger tank and begin to breed some apple snails in it to further offer Indiana some of his apparently new favorite treat.

[IchliebeTiere]

I'm getting ready to go out and buy some snails and try raising them. How are yours doing?

[NOP]

Doing good so far i bought 10 to start off with and so far none of them have died so thats a good sign. Ill keep them alive long enough for them to breed and have tons of babies because i have no idea which ones are male and female. I may get tempted to feed one or two of them off soon, and i have kinda been wanting to buy some fish for the tank as i would love to 2 or 3 fish in there. But my problem is the fish i want are semi-aggressive and most everything i read says they kill snails. but ive seen videos of tanks with them and snails doing fine

[MissC89]

Stupid question alert - I am assuming you put the snails in water? If not, what kind of environment do you put them in?

Also sounds like a really good idea. I was wondering where you would be able to find snails (heard they are really good for BTS's [from this site ha ha]) and I would really appreciate updates on how your farm is doing. If I come across any tips I will be sure to share! I'm hoping to start a snail farm as well

[IchliebeTiere]

I can find mystery snails but no one seems to have apple snails. I set up a "barebottom" 5 gallon tank with only 4 gallons of water since they lay eggs above the water line. I might put a couple mollies in it - ha ha. The vet said mystery snails were fine. Does anyone have an opinion on this?

[Spindown]

Mystery snails are apple snails. They are called that because apple snails are very VERY invasive and are hence illegal to sell. Mystery snails (oh haha we dont know what is is so we cant get in trouble for selling them) are what pet stores call them.

ETA: Definitely NEVER EVER EVER set any of these loose in the wild, and when you are done with your tank in the future (if that happens) kill the heck out of anything that could still be alive before putting anything back into the water cycle.

[NOP]

Thats correct the Golden Mystery Snail is actually an Apple Snail. And yes the snails are kept in water at all times, but because the sides of the tank are rather high i have a large Air wand in the back of the tank which keeps the oxygen lvl in the tank high enough to where i havent seen any of them climb to the top yet. (Which is a bummer because Apple Snails lay eggs above the water lvl) Also if anyone has any questions about Apple snails you can check out http://www.applesnail.net/ there is some very useful info. The main reason i am gonna keep them and breed them is because you just cant get any non aquatic snails very easily and Apple snails are a good substitute to the Garden snails that i cant get. I would post some photos of update but well the my Iphone was run over by a car....(dont ask) But i get an Iphone 5 now so its not a total loss because i usually backup all my data everyday by charging it on my computer.

[Spindown]

I plan on snagging some mystery snails myself for the blueys since like you said, terrestrial snails are VERY hard to come by where I live. Applesnail.net is awesome, I've been there before while trying to figure out what type of snail my friend has in his local lake that we caught to feed the blueys. Turns out they are the invasive "Chinese mystery snail". Eek! At least they are going to a good cause...taking away invasives and feeding them to my lizards!

[DrakeLineous12]

Too bad the giant African land snails were considered invasives. If the golden mysteries are in fact apple snails then they're also highly invasive. Good news would be they grow to the size of baseballs and breed a lot, buy they also take a long time to do so. Care for them is pretty simple, I've been keeping fish long before reptiles and they do quite well on just the excess fish food. Besides that they love vegetables, especially the leafy greens. People eat them so they should be great for BTs

[IchliebeTiere]

is there a difference between the golden mystery and the black mystery snail besides color?

[DrakeLineous12]

Well if its true that the goldens are actually apple snails then the black ones are a different species and stay smaller. If it isn't then there is no difference, it's just a morph. Blacks can also be purple or ivory in shell color.

[IchliebeTiere]

so black & golden are both okay to feed to a BTS?

[NOP]

Im not sure about the Black snails but Apple Snails are can be a Golden Color and an Ivory Color. From my understanding i dont even think there is such a species as Golden Mystery snail they are just Apple Snails that are called that. Personally i wouldnt feed any snails with a Black shell to my guy. I also wouldnt feed snails to my guy that i just bought from a pet store i always keep them alive for a couple weeks so i know that they are healthy and fed well.

[IchliebeTiere]

Well is there something wrong with the black snails? They were labled the same... They seem the same then the others, are they posioness?
And the snails are in a 5 gal. tank, we're trying to breed them and aren't feeding her them yet because we're skeptical about the condition their in.

-Nadine

[critterguy]

That website is a good one. It would be a great help if we start using latin names so we know what species we are talking of from here on out.

I think Marisa ssp. would be good bluey food. Grow fast and I found them easy to breed. I've had little luck with bridgesii. In states where legal P. canaliculata is a good choice but they do get very big. Marisa and canaliculata have the advantage of readily taking blanched vegetables and aquatic plants so they are easier to feed.

Small ramshorn snails(Planorbis) are a good bet though it will take lots to feed a bluetongue.

[DrakeLineous12]

There's nothing wrong with the black mystery snails, just make sure you gut load them before feeding out. They aren't toxic in anyway, otherwise people wouldn't keep them with other animals in tanks.Theyre also easy to breed if you get things going well. I found that the giant ramshorn have to much shell, since it's in a spiral configuration. Also, you might as well get some of the golden ones and see if they get bigger than the blacks. If they do then they would be apple snails and they would be better food for skinks

[IchliebeTiere]

Sounds like good info. I'll see how this goes.

[MissC89]

How big or small of a tank should you generally get if you want to breed snails?

[xxmonitorlizardxx]

How big or small of a tank should you generally get if you want to breed snails?

Pretty much anything 5 gallons or more.

[DrakeLineous12]

That's really up to you, I'd start with a 10 gal and a simple filter like a sponge filter to get started. You'd also need a gap of an inch or two between the water and the top of the tank since they lay their eggs above the water line. and since they're hermaphrodites any number of them would breed for you and each would lay eggs if the conditions are right.