Today he started doing something new.. going tot he top of the water and extending his siphon out of the water and 'gulping' i have not seen him do this ever and he has done it prolly 4 times in the last hour.. is this normal?

I did find him on the desk 2 days ago, thankfully he had his door shut still, plopped him back in the water and a 1/2 hour later he started trowling around again.

Also.. what kind of snail is he?


found a picture that looks nearly just like him but cant find any info on it. he is all peachy spotted on his flesh. really pretty

He looks like an apple/mystery snail, Pomacea bridgesii. In which case he's just taking a breath of air which is normal behavior for them since they have gills and a lung.

Sounds like an ivory apple snail (they're sometimes sold under the name mystery snail). They have a white body sometimes with reddish speckles. Apple snails have a lung as well as gills. I catch mine at the surface pretty regularly. They also go out of water to lay eggs. Mine escaped twice before I put screen around the filters so he couldn't anymore, but he never seemed any worse for the wear after a carpet adventure.

This post has been edited by Corleone: Jul 24 2008, 04:27 AM

Thank you you guys...

are they known for eating healthy plants? i had a purple hyacinth and he literally sucked it dry in a matter of days

No. They'll eat dead or dying leaves, and mine's slowly killing my temple plants, but they've never grown very well for me anyway. He leaves my other plants alone entirely.

They might eat soft or fleshy plants when hungry, but that's rare and only if they don't have anything else to eat.

What have you been feeding him?

algae wafers..

Try giving him some lettuce or cucumber. Just leave it in the tank overnight, and remove what's left in the morning. My snails all seem to be bottomless pits, and if I neglect to give them their veggies for a few days, my temple plants suffer all the more.

what about zucchini?

That's fine too.

awesome then i dont have to go shopping! hopefully my betta wont gorge himself on it like he wanted to on his peas

He might nibble on it, but particularly cucumber and zucchini, I've found most fish give up on it. Exceptions are any suckermouthed catfish, which will go to town on it just as much as the snail.