Top 3 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Mystery Snails

The article is devoted to Top 3 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Mystery Snails. Mystery snails (Pomacea bridgesi) have quickly become a staple in the aquarium hobby because of their large size and striking coloration. However, despite their growing popularity, many aquarists still don’t know how to keep them alive – and unfortunately, most pet stores don’t know enough to educate them, either.

Here are the top three mistakes that most people make with their first Mystery snails:

• They don’t feed them. One of biggest contributors to premature Mystery snail death in the aquarium is a lack of the right food! In other words, most newly purchased snails end up starving because most aquarists initially acquire a snail as a form of algae control. Unfortunately, the algae covering your tank is sufficient enough to sustain an adult snail for the long term – in fact, may not even be a type of algae that they eat in the first place. In order to keep your Mystery snail alive and thriving, you will have to offer it a regular, varied diet that consists of things like shelled peas, spinach leaves, kale and quality algae wafers.
• They keep them with incompatible fish. Another contributor to early death in aquarium raised Mystery snails boils down to compatibility issues. Often, aquarists try to keep their snails with too many other algae eating fish, aggressive tankmates, or with fish that eat snails. Sometimes, otherwise peaceful aquarium fish will mercilessly pick at the tentacles and other exposed flesh of the snail, which results in a slow death from the stress – and sometimes the injuries themselves. Additionally, if you try to keep an adult Mystery snail with too many other algae eating tankmates, the competition for the soft green algae in the tank will be so high that eventually some of them will start dying from starvation.
• They don’t leave a gap for oxygen. Mystery snails are a species of air breathing mollusk – in addition to gills, they also have a special apparatus that allows them to breathe air from the surface of the water. If you don’t allow enough of a gap between the surface of the water and the top of your fish tank, you will continually lose your snails.

In addition being a colorful aquarium resident, the Mystery snail is also a great addition to a freshwater puffer’s diet! Although they aren’t a suitable size for smaller puffers, Mystery snails make the perfect sized crunchy meal for medium and large species.