A Brief Guide to Mystery Snails

Mystery snails are great, beginner invertebrates for your tank. They live to be about a year and come in a variety of colors, including brown, black, purple, blue, gold, and white. Some even have striped patterns on their shells. If you’re looking to dive in the aquarium hobby - ha - but feel overwhelmed by the choices or want an easy going, peaceful tank filled with life, I definitely suggest getting a couple of mystery snails to start your journey. Check out this video for a brief introduction and guide to Mystery Snails!
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If you are interested in a more serious topic, consider visiting Secrets of the Trees, where I break down the details on the unresolved, the unsolved, the mysterious and the tragic cases of true crime. Viewer discretion is advised.
/ @secretsofthetrees

[@debshaw680]

Question about the mystery snails. Last time I had them, one of them killed a tank mate so I switched him out into another tank. They were constantly wrestling face to face. They’re supposed to be peaceful. It killed all the other snails then died. I was feeding them properly. The water was good. It was just evil. Now I have a 20 gallon and 2 snails which the aquaculture shop said was ok. But there’s a lot of mouth to mouth wrestling. One of them spends a lot of time hiding in the condo of tubes I got for my ADF. Please help!

[@J.A.Arellano]

Hmm. I know males can overbreed with females and kill them like that. Males can also fight for mating rights. It’s possible the one that’s hiding is a female and she’s tired of being harassed. There’s a thread I read on aquarium advice which states that there are some types of snails which are known to kill others and shouldn’t be sold in stores, though sometimes they do get put out for sale (and are sold under the guise of being mystery snails). It might be possible your local fish store is accidentally selling these? They go on to describe a kind of snail that is aggressive. The link is below if you want to check it out. Does your snail happen to have markings on the shell? www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f129/mystery-snails-fighting-and-killing-each-other-293032.html

[@debshaw680]

@@J.A.Arellano no. They’re pale blue in color. I’ll look at the article and let you know! The one I had that killed everyone was tan.

[@debshaw680]

@@J.A.Arellano no stripes no. And they get pellets for shrimp and snails, as well as hogging the ADF’s food if I don’t put it in front of him. And algae tablets. I’m going to give them some cucumbers today. I’ll feed more pellets as well. Thanks for the info. I figure it’s two males, two females, or one of each. Guess I need to sex them!