2.5 Gallon Snailarium

[SPLiSH]

I've had my old 2.5 lying around for ages, gathering dust... dog hair... dead bugs.... live bugs. And last week I finally got sick of it. I decided to set it up with... something. A betta? No, I already have two. Hmm... I know! A... betta? There aren't many choices for a 2.5 gallon.

How about a snail, said my dad? A snail? It seemed stupid to dedicate a whole tank (allbeit a small one) to one snail. But thinking it over, a cute lil' snail erm.. oozing around the tank would be fun to watch. And it means my mum can no longer threaten to bin the tank.

So here's the tank, after a thorough clean, empty except for gravel:

With the plants and driftwood:

With the background and filter on, ready to go:

Since it's a very basic tank, it has no CO2 and therefore I am limited in plant choices. So I chose some Elodea, a few little Java ferns and a nice little Anubias nana for the driftwood. I was also given some Java moss 'for free' which is thoughtful of my LFS but it's only a few strands that stuck to the nana, so I divided it and put it in the betta tanks.

I am picking up the snail tomorrow, I'm not cyling the tank, as the snail will be the only inhabitant and the ones at my LFS are tiny, so the bioload will increase very gradually. There's some yummy-looking algae on the plants so hopefully he'll be right at home.

 

[FishOwner]

Cool!

Have you thought about adding a shrimp or two?


BTW, the intake tube looks too long, maybe take off the long part and just have the strainer part on there. Just a suggestion!

 

[guppy_man]

looks a very good tank for a snail i was thinking you could add a shrimp or 2, that will look good

o yea and what type of snail are you having?

 

[lljdma06]

I think a snail would be very pleased to call that tank home. I agree that a shrimp or two would round it out very nicely. Very fun little tank.

Watch the java fern. It doesn't do well in the substrate. It needs to be attached onto the wood like the anubia.

 

[blitztidus]

I also agree with the brevious two posts, 2 shrimp should look great in their. I think it will be a great home. It looks awesom

 

[SPLiSH]

Thanks everyone!

I thought about shrimp, can't find them anywhere here though.. but if I do I'll pick up a few.

lljdma06, thanks for the heads-up on the java fern. I will watch them closely.

I actually already have two inhabitants! I found a weeny Malaysian Trumpet snail last night, about this long _ which I have named Napoleon, and this morning I discovered what I think is an apple snail, even smaller than the MTS. I have named it Don.

They are cute, but take me about 10 minutes to locate so I am going to pick up an adult Pomacea brigesii (golden mystery) snail today. Obviously when the little one is big enough to mate with the big one, the big one will be transferred to my 6.5 gal to have as it's own.

I will post pics of all snails when I get the adult brigesii.

Oh, and a question: see at the base of the Elodea how there is that little metal ring? Is that harmful for the snails? Like, will it secrete metals into the water?

As you can see this is my first live planted tank.

 

[Auratus]

Just be careful that they don't munch on the plants, certain snails will.

Tank looks beautiful

 

[SPLiSH]

Oh, and a question: see at the base of the Elodea how there is that little metal ring? Is that harmful for the snails? Like, will it secrete metals into the water?

Nope, those metal rings are safe for snails and fish as they don't rust. Anything that rusts or is made out of copper is not good for snails. They get an electric shock when they come in contact with copper.

Thanks.

Well, I have a little update, I got a little golden pomacea brigesii snail, and I think she's female, so I've called her Esmarelda.

I have made a few adjustments:

The Elodea was getting a bit bashed from the filter's strong output current so I opened the filter, stretched some filter floss over the opening of the output tube and now it's a lot better.

I thought about what FishOwner said about the intake tube, and decided it was a bit odd. So I removed the extra tube and the filter is working better than before and IMO, looking better. I also moved the Java fern behind the driftwood to the right so it didn't detract from the Anubias on the driftwood. And I picked up the new snail! Here are some pics:

The unidentified hitch-hiking snail, Don: (Ideas, anyone?)

And the new golden mystery snail, Esmarelda:

 

[SPLiSH]

Updated pic with shortened filter intake and slight rearranging of plants. You can also see Esmarelda and the pumpkin (the two yellow things):

 

[Dany]

what are the dimentions of that tank. looks a lot bigger than a 2.5 gallon....hec looks alot bigger than a 10 gallon

 

[FishOwner]

Beautiful!! Looks very nice and I love your snails!!





(BTW just so others know, snails don't get a "shock" from copper, copper is toxic to all invertebrates.)

 

[Die_Grinder]

the 2nd pic looks like a apple to me but i dont doooo snails lol looks nice tho. if it is bigger than 2 gals u should have a dwarf puffer, they're soooo cute

 

[guppy_man]

if you didnt already know, snails dont need other snails to breed, you only need the 1
thats how i started off with my trumpet snails, i was so excited when i found my 2mm trumpet in my tank, then about 2 weeks after they were everywhere

 

[Bloo]

if you didnt already know, snails dont need other snails to breed

Applesnail are gonochoristic (separated sexes), and male and a female snails are needed to breed

For more info on everything anyone could possibly want to know about applesnails, see Applesnail.net.

That's a cool setup you have there SPLiSH

 

[atmmachine816]

Dwarf puffers need a minimum of 5 gallons of good filtered and heated water not 2.