Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

As far as eating oysters goes i had a dozen one night and only nine worked BOOM BOOM

Snail joke my niece just reminded me of when she saw me browsing this thread:

What's the definition of a snail?
A boogey with a crash helmet!



Thankyou, I'm here all week... Try the fish.

I've had all types of snails in my fish tnaks over the years but i've found the small red ramshorn snails to be excellent cleaners, plus my fish like to crunch them up too! Same goes for the little brown river snails (i think they're native) and even though i occasionally get a plauge in the pond, the fish eventually take care of them, i sift out vast numbers of empty snail shells whenever i dredge the pond.

I think they make an excellent addition to any aquatic system, but you've got to be aware of the clogging problem, as far as pipes and pumps go, but the major offender here is the Moluccun trumpet snail (just one name for them) they are small (15-20mm long) and quite pointy brown/grey coloured and burrow into gravel, coming out to feed at night, they are a pest and should not be released, so if you have them try and kill them though this is almost impossible, ill try and get some info on them ,(proper names and the such) but they are a pain, and have clogged and destroyed a number of my pumps.

LOL yes... blame the french...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escargot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliciculture

Turning Snails into Escargot...

Soak the snails in enough water to cover them.

quote]

So keeping them in your aquarium should give you 'pre soaked' snails... mmm

Once you taste some you'll definitely change your mind.

I added some in my system. some I caught in the pond and 3 very nice with a blue shell. I shall add some more because I find them cool! They eat alguae quite well.

Do they produce ammonia as well as fishes? I guess their waste is the same.

One snail you may not want to try is a large mangrove snail (shell is about 8cm long) from North Queensland. That is one animal that definitely needs purging before eating it!

I must say that since I put snails in the aquarium I haven't had to do a changeout the water is clear and so is the glass..

I have an out break of snails in my sump underneath my tank. As long as they stay down there I don't care. They eat all the uneaten food that gets skimmed off the aquarium water.

I've had problems with small pond snails working their way into the pump and stopping the impeller. I would just make sure your pump has a good pre-filter on it to keep them out. I do have Japanese Trap Door Snails in the pond. They clean up some of the algae and are generally nice. They are about 2-3cm across and slow to reproduce.

--Janet.

TimC hows the snails in the slum tank doing? i have been thinking off a way to get rid off the dead roots of the plants in a mediumless system

i think this is a good way to go a snail 'powered solids filter' and even throw in kitchen the scraps for them too munch on. That should add some more food in the system.

am allso looking at aquapioncs in shallow water with autopots useing the Guppy fish but that another story

Yeah they are still in there, but they don't grow very big, the current is too strong. A lot of empty big shells. I throw them in to tease the Bream... suckers!

so thay just die and leave the shells how long do you think one of theses snail should live?

I am not sure... if they are under the right conditions and the correct species I'd say months or maybe years... Bigger varieties can grow pretty big, ie. big marble size (was going to say 20 cent piece, duh). Snails will also breed FAST. I think from memory most prefer cold water, whereas my tank is semi-tropical.

I had a few excess baby apple snails (or "mystery snails) that i put in one of my ap systems outside, they cant get anywhere to cause troubles, and they are already tripple the size of their siblings in inside aquariums

They seem to do a good job of breaking up any stray leaves that make their way in

what do you have in place too stop the snails from getting away