r/Aquariums • u/otterboi123 • May 28 '24

Begging for snails Saltwater/Brackish

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1.9k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

Invite some bladder snails into your tank! Those lil dudes thrive on practically ANYTHING, plus your puffer will stay well-fed.

If possible too, look into hatching snail eggs! Mystery snails (aka apple snails) reproduce like rabbits, but they lay 200-400 eggs per clutch. Clutches can come as soon as every 3 days afaik. Super easy to take care of as well until the babes hatch!

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u/otterboi123 May 29 '24

Yeah I have bladder snails in some other tanks they won't survive in this one it's brackish

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u/succadoge_ May 29 '24

Ohh gotcha! There may be other snails that work in brackish but I'm not too sure. Love the puffer tho, he's a cutie ❤️

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u/Bammalam102 May 29 '24

Nerite snails can do brackish water and in fact will only successfully reproduce in it rather than salt or fresh water which they can also live in. But they are bigger snails, although when my tank got algae i just threw two in and it was gone in a week with my buddy telling me “that tanks crystal clear man”

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u/Emuwarum snailsnailsnail May 29 '24

It's not exactly brackish water that they reproduce in either. And there are a few hundred species that need different conditions. And even if you can get the right conditions they're nearly impossible to raise in captivity.

And with the ones that you do keep in aquariums you don't really want to keep them in brackish as it can shorten their lifespan. At least last I heard on that subject.

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u/Bammalam102 May 29 '24

Okay care to explain what species can or cannot for a newer person? Thats what op wanted and what I did my best to provide them with. Everything i have read so far says nerites can be acclimated to any salinity and the eggs only hatch in brackish water. And if you always have fresh snails it does not matter if their lifespan is shortened a bit (think raising shrimp temp to make them reproduce faster, but also shortening the lifespan)

Its best to simplify as much as possible as the way you offered your knowledge makes it seem much more intimidating than it is to find snails for brackish water.

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u/Emuwarum snailsnailsnail May 29 '24

There are like 300 species and maybe 2 (?) have ever hatched and grown to adulthood in captivity. It is just not achievable for the average person.

I'll just u/AmandaDarlingInc , she is actually researching how to breed them in a lab and can probably explain it better.

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u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

If someone ever quotes that fish lore link to you again you can confidently tell them he didn't do it. I need to reread the whole thing but I'm certain I'm actually in there under the same username. He got too exited too fast, they didn't make it (this is me being generous, I have not actually seen the trochophore he claimed to have metamorphosed them into, it was actually quite possibly a misclassification of another free swimming larvae).

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u/Bammalam102 May 29 '24

I doubt there are people wildly picking every nerite that is in a tank except for two right now but i do not know enough about them. Im currently reading this:

“I’m a biologist and this is my first attempt breeding nerite snails. Has been a long journey, full of patience, but everything is going as planned. I started by acclimating freshwater nerite snails into brackish water. Long process, but successful. After that they started breeding and a few months later the capsules start hatching. Now, I have thousands of larvae swimming all around and a few hundreds extremely small snails. Here are some videos and photos. I would like to know what you think about it and if you have any suggestions. From what I understand everybody says it’s impossible.” On fishlore.com

I mean op should just do research until they are certain about everything before doing anything but nerite snails are a good lead to start on

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u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

"I doubt there are people wildly picking every nerite that is in a tank except for two right now but i do not know enough about them."

Correct, you do not know enough about them. Neritids are largely wild caught, enough that unless I'm speaking to someone else about a specific species I say ALL neritids are wild caught. You can breed some of the Theodoxus genus in captivity but they don't breed readily enough to support the trade so they're still also largely wild caught. I don't specialize in the marine species but I do keep some of them and to the best of my understanding and observation, even they have a difficult time coming out of the veliger stage so they are wild caught as well.

“I’m a biologist and this is my first attempt breeding nerite snails". It's been days so maybe you've see it already, if not I hate to disappoint (only a little bit sorry because I am pretty tired of seeing that fishlore thread so I'll be brutally honest...) he didn't do it. When you get to the bottom there you'll notice he kinda stops responding and as it turns out... he didn't pull it off. I think my comments are even still in there. I lurked on fishlore when I was but a baby malacologist.

That being said, if you really like the subject you can join us over in r/snailbreeding and r/AquaticSnails I don't have a ton of context for this post but I've responded where I was tagged. I run a lab dedicated to the captive husbandry of the family Neritidae and my publishings go there first.

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u/Emuwarum snailsnailsnail Jun 01 '24

.... it's kinda weird that twice I've called you to help explain to someone why you can't just plop neritids in brackish and breed them, and both times they've responded rudely.

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u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

It is SO weird because it only happens over here haha I guess I should have read the rest of the thread maybe? Did I miss some sensitive context somewhere?

Part of me sort of gets the immediate disbelieve that they're all wild caught because they're so readily available and they're relatively cheap... but no one in the store is gonna tell you that only a fraction of them successfully acclimate. They're harvested en masse, trafficked cheaply and sold as a commodity.

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u/Bammalam102 Jun 01 '24

I forsure do not know enough about them but i for sure do not want to learn from you. Glass half empty kinda person

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u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

I don't know what the two have to do with each other... unless there's a neritid in the glass? In which case the extra climbing space above the water line makes sense... they love that actually...

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u/Bammalam102 Jun 01 '24

Im just saying you sound pretty negative but i do appreciate the information. I would rather head about what does work instead of what does not. A quick “hey that wont work but this will and heres how” sounds like a sentence a “glass half full” person would say.

Edit: also the wording should be “they have not figured out how to breed in captivity yet” not it cannot be done.

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u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

It is kinda intimidating and it should be. The neritids were talking about in the family Neritidae aren't brackish OR freshwater, they're amphidromous. On top of that there are ones that are strictly marine, freshwater dominant and arboreal. You say that it shouldn't matter if we shorten their lifespan for the purpose of reproduction and I couldn't agree less. I think that's pretty unethical. I don't know why you would be comfortable with that.

I'd imagine that what you've read is largely blog based and anecdotal. A lot gets repeated over and over online regarding these guys. Be careful of your sources, you want someone who can show you what they're doing or is credibly citing what they say.

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u/Bammalam102 Jun 01 '24

Id be comfortable because even as humans if we bred too much we yould do what is necessary to ensure survival of the fittest, as is nature. If they breed in the right conditions but die a bit slower what is the matter if the net gain is more than loss. You are still giving life to lots of others. Since you have not linked anything saying it is impossible to breed nerites in captivity and i have read that it is possible i will continue to not believe you on how difficult they are to keep alive until more than one source says othewise… yet alone one human on reddit

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u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

What? What does breeding too many of them and being responsible with the offspring have to do with shortening their lifespans? Die a bit slower? They're dying faster. Giving life to others that develop traits in captivity we don't want isn't a net gain. Are you talking about domesticating them or something?

You want me to prove something hasn't happened? You can't prove something is impossible. Nor have I said it was. You still haven't read that it was possible. That's an infamous fishlore post and if you read through you'll find it pretty dubious. Dude posted too early. He was mistaken. There were no nerititds that survived. We're not even sure that's what they were to begin with, he couldn't prove it. Make a fish lore account. If you can lure him out, I'd love to hear from him.

Speaking in absolutes in this industry is silly so I don't say can't/won't/impossible, I'm not here to argue semantics, but it is hard and it's a huge issue in circles that deal with malacology and conservation. Hobbyists really do not get it and I think it's because the snails are so readily available to you and your LFS doesn't emphasize their attrition rates during harvest, trafficking, acclimation etc. There are like 300 species in the family Neritidae. They're almost the most widely distributed family of snails world wide and extremely old. Like, no ones out here turnin

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u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

and burnin broodstock at any salinity, not for lack of trying. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335660879_Biogeographic_conundrum_Why_so_few_stream_nerite_species_Gastropoda_Neritidae_in_Australia I know two people in the US, one team in Italy and an Australian team. This was a Brazilian team, who I think has since moved on. Theres not really any money in this! https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233429602_Spawning_and_intra-capsular_development_of_Neritina_zebra_Bruguiere_1792_Mollusca_Gastropoda_Neritidae_under_laboratory_conditions I think it was like 40 days in lab conditions. The Australian team produced a hatch and four months of development but those snails never reached sexual maturity. https://www.ajbasweb.com/old/ajbas/2022/December/17-21(3).pdf.pdf) I dunno where this team is, Indo/pacific I'd guess because of the snail they chose? I haven't looked at these studies in years but yet another species and a struggle to get generations https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352513424002333 and they're really trying hard because Clithon diadamea has a threatened status now. Also, were all just a human on reddit unless you're a lizard from under Denver so I dunno what emphasis that was supposed to have...

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u/Bammalam102 Jun 01 '24

Okay, even you said certain species are possible just not readily enough to support the trade. Could it support one tank for op?

Yeah i misworded it a bit.

I still appreciate the knowledge, even if you see to be against me instead of teach me. have they tried taking the young out of salinity and readding them once mature? Im sure this could he what happens in nature as brackish water could be a fresh stream into an ocean and the young move where its safe? Ive not the time to read all of those at the moment but since you have provided stuff i can check later i will begin to take your word

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u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

I dont know what you're talking about. OP's video is a fish swimming around, I don't even see a question. Support one tank what?

If they want to spend thousands to breed neritids in a humid, still water lab? I don't know why they would want to? It's a full time job. It's expensive. It's incredibly low yield. I really don't know what the goal is. You haven't given me a species so I dunno what to tell ya.

Additionally, what country does OP live in? If OP wants freshwater neritids they have to be on the European continent, if they want amphidromus ones they need to be largely outside of Europe, if they want marine ones they need to be on islands that have those locally or will permit import. I don't need you to take my word, I'm not trying to teach you anything, I'm trying to impress upon you that here's decades of research, people do this for a living, and the result is that all neritids in the trade are still wild caught. I mean, I run a literal lab, like me and others get paid to make this work and we still haven't. Have we tried XYZ that Balamalama on reddit thought of in the shower one day? Yes. Yes we have. Everything you want to know is in those papers as well as hundreds and thousands of others.

You seem to like analogy so here goes this... the conversation were having is like me telling you the car won't start because someone has stolen the cat converter, you see me put the key in and try to turn the engine over and when it doesnt work... you ask me to put more gas in and then look at me surprised that the car still wont turn on... We're talking about the same thing, but you don't have enough information on the subject to understand what the problem is.

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u/Bammalam102 Jun 01 '24

So what is the problem

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