Hi!
I have two columbian ramshorn snails. :D
They have very good appetite :P They eat fish food and plants as well.
I have read that they are not really ramshorn snails, more like apple snails.
Is that true? And how about breeding them? Does anyone have any experience with them?

Thanks!

keszi
from Hungary

Yes, they are a species of apple snail, not real ramshorn snails. See http://www.applesnail.net for more (they have it so I can't link to specific pages on their site but looks for the Columbian ramshorns on the page). I've never had them myself.

Hi,

thanks!
Im not sure how big they should be, before they start breeding.
Maybe I should be more patient because they arent big enough yet:)
But I couldnt find any information on that. :unsure:

keszi

Hi,

now I have three columbian ramshorn snails:)
They are differ in size, so i can easily tell which is which.
The medium-sized always climbs on the other two. The smallest tries to escape, but it usually ends up with the poor little thing carrying the bigger one around.
At first i thought the medium-sized wants to mate, but im not sure now. He just stays on the other two snails' shells, without any other contact. It seems to me, that he is simply lazy.

What do you think, why is he doing this? Is there any chance that he actually wants to mate?

I have forgotten a very important question :rolleyes:
IF my snails were mating, how long it suppose to take them to lay eggs?
The temperature is little bit above 28C, and they have enough food.
I know they can wait over months, but if the conditions are fine, i hope they will not :D

Thanks!

keszi

Snails just like to crawl on each other! It could be mating too. After mating, a female normally lays eggs a week or two later.

Hi!

Im sooo happy. Now Im sure they mating :P
He wasnt really crawling before either, usually waited until the other snail fell asleep, or was too busy with eating, than "jumped" on its shell from above.
Then he stood there for hours without doing anything. But yesterday im pretty sure they were mating. The largest snail was very unhappy. She always tries to shut her door, but yesterday she was slower than the other snail :rolleyes:
Should it be this way? I mean whats her problem?:)

Anyway, I know from which to expect the eggs, so now i will only have to wait.

Thanks for the answer!

keszi

Hi!

In the aquarium, where I keep my columbian ramshorn snails, I also have "common" ramshorn snails and wandering snails. I have noticed that there are a lot of empty shells on the bottom. And yesterday I saw that one of my columbian ramshorn snails is trying to eat a wandering snail. Is that possible, that they will haunt down my other snails?
I usually give them fish food and there are fast-groving plants in the aquarium which they love to eat.
I know that a lot of apple snails eat dead snails, but i never thought that they will kill the living ones too. :(

keszi

A few kinds of snails will kill other snails. I don't know enough about Columbian ramshorns to say if that's normal for them or not. If they can eat snails, it may not matter if they're well fed if they just want to do it.

Hi!

Almost three weeks after my last message, two of my snails laid eggs, but the eggs were very different. One group was white, the other was transparent.
I kept the water warm, so I thought everything will be ok. But after two days some of the snails tried to eat them. I separated the eggs in a small aquarium, the temperature was ok. They were in there for weeks, but nothing happened. I gave up hope, and put them back in the original aquarium. :(
After a while the snails eat the plants on what the eggs were, and I havent seen them since then.
Three days ago I have found another group of eggs. They are white, with 3-4 mm diameter.
And today I saw a snail, with 6-7 mm shell length. He has the same stripes as my columbian ramshorn snails, but he is too small to be sure yet and the shell colour is very pale. I have searched the aquarium, but could not find another snail like this. He might be the only survivor of the last groups.

What shell I do with the eggs? I am worried, because the other groups were not very lucky.

keszi

I think the Columbian ramshorn snails, being apple snails, lay their eggs above the water line. Is that where you found them? It's hard to remove snails on glass without damaging them. If you can get them to lay on plants, then move the eggs to a tank of their own. It needn't be anything fancy. White eggs are often infertile or fungused but, since I'm not familiar with this species, I don't know what their normal color is.

Hi,

they laid their eggs on plants. I have read that it is normal for them :rolleyes:
So I could move the eggs easily.
By the way, the third group of eggs seems to be ok, the little snails are already visible through the eggs, and they are growing fast:)

keszi